from "The Throne of Psyche"

Here's a little gift for all you passers-by who are still making out your Christmas lists... And I'll be doing some recommendations soon.

This poem first appeared (along with some others by me) in a feature about Southern women poets in storySouth and was collected in my newest book, The Throne of Psyche (Mercer University Press, 2011.)

SOUTHERN TO THE BONE                                              

1.

To explain—as if she could!—

She says:  When I was young

And passing fair and strong

Like a girl in a fairy tale,

I ran from God and angels.

I flew to dark powers

--Though they aren’t dark but seeming-light,

With glamour on them like the fey—

And I frisked with the demons on the hills,

Then curled to sleep against their thighs,

A wing along my bow-bent spine.

I woke, dappled with dew.

And found that they had picked         

Me clean of clothes and more,

Treasures dear to me.

I was bereft.

I was:  weakness.

All-conquering. 

The rains

Began.

 

2.

She says:

Rain is rain is rain.

This was no rain but light,

Or not light but arrowy

Fine peltings of a fire

Shot slantwise through the skin

Until I could not tell

What was me from rain

Or light, and river waves

Not-rain-or-light-or-fire

Swamped me until I drowned

And washed into the sea,

To drift with sailor boys

Past luminous weeds and fish

Unto the roots of the world.

3.

Don’t ask her any more

What Southern really means,

Or why we just can’t quit

Mulling over a tale

Of rum and slaves and gold.

She married powers of dark.

She burned in bright rivers.

That’s why.