Crossing the Line
When your car tires bump
fwump fwump over the stateline
and the drivers speeding beside you
tap their horns to signal a homecoming,
you find yourself staring at the dismal
stretch of highway ahead,
the same as that stretching behind you.
The only hint to your arrival.
The Great Peach State, the Empire State
of the South, the home of the O’Haras
for God’s sake, an orange cartoon fruit
dominating the welcome sign.
Really it’s all asphalt, big rigs, and litter
with occasional signage yelling
that Jesus loves you, yes He does
beside Jumbo jackpot! Play and win big!
and a sultry eyelash flutter
announcing Adam and Eve’s proximity.
Where, you ask, are the peach orchards
and fields of white snow blooms?
Where can I find
the bluegrass twang or the pearl-collared
debutantes and their quarterback counterparts?
Where, you demand,
do the magnolias grow
their lemon-scented petals blanketing
the earth, and where can I find
the twisted oaks with their sagging shawls
of Spanish moss crawling with insects?
And where, once more,
are the white brick mansions
with their fluted columns?
And, oh, can you tell me
where I might find a Confederate, please
one is wanted dead or alive?
Or at least their sacrosanct
bone dust relic
of a horrific cause justly lost
Something unholy to sprinkle
on my righteousness?
If it’s not a bother.
Well, here you are.
Take this exit, yes. Here, now.
If you want to see and hear and taste
this land you call the South
(although south of what, exactly?)
then follow that old road
into an empty town
bypassed by progress’s concrete ribbon.
In buildings half-eaten by wisteria
growing in invasive tangles,
order vinegar slaw and smoked pork
in a basket, drink enough sweet ice tea
to rot your teeth or at least stain them yellow
Here we have a Hallmark, a Bi-Lo,
a dirty Wendy’s, and y’know I hear
they’re putting in a Walmart by the highway.
Drive further still and you’ll collide
with the first tendril trails
of industrial sprawl, strip malls
and condominiums cropping up,
reaching for the quiet pastures and mountains
like grasping fingers.
If you want to stretch your legs
and don’t mind clay stains
on your white tennis shoes,
you could:
lean on a gray fence post.
But mind the barbed wire,
coming loose there.
Walk soft through tall fescue,
wary that your footfalls don’t discover
a coiled rattler.
Don’t lift that sun-warmed
rock unless you want the sting
of the scorpion sleeping beneath.
Catch the flutter of sunlight
in the quick fly-flick of a chestnut’s tail,
her hide dappled brown with sweat
from the heat that settles
and smothers your skin.
Mosquitos, no-see-ums, horseflies,
copperheads, cottonmouths, water-moccasins
circling nearby, always, always
a whisper of malice in the water.
And so much sun-tinged yellow:
the empty pastures, the tangled undergrowth,
the knee-high weeds, and the thistles
with their ungraceful purple blooms.
And there, maybe,
your sought-after peach orchard.
Squat trees in brisk rows,
the laden branches drooping
to the fallen fruit, rotten
and oozing on the orchard floor.
Pluck one,
dangling in the sunlight,
its stem yielding to your grasp.
Delicately soft and flushed pink,
plump and nourishing,
spurting sugar.
Now there’s something
you can sink your teeth into.
Thank you for reading and supporting my creativity!
