Tar Heel in Exile
By Julia M., Silver Spring, MD
For all my salty summer curls
like sunshine against my Carolina blues
For all my moments as a child
of the sky that stretches my eyes as wide as my dreams
For all my front porches and scrub pines
that grow from my belly and stretch to the sun
like the tangles of my secret wildness
For all my calluses and freckled skin
tarred feet and ocean eyes
For all my sighs echoing in the dark expanses -
lightning bug-stars accompanied by
cricket orchestras in the night air
For all the pine needles and sand like gold between my toes,
I am not one of them.
Their voices come to me like memories of a warm-familiar dream
poisoned honey-filled pinpricks and wavelets from beyond
but I cannot speak like them.
Instead I speak with the voice
of all the languages that met on the playground
when we didn't care and kept dancing to the Doowadiddis
But their flip-flops are all the same suede Rainbows
flop-flipping on the Others
a soft but deep tread into the
spirits of those who chose a life
other than matching name-brand pastels and tequila-soaked sequins
Stretched by either arm over the East Coast because Frankly my dear
I am neither Yankee nor Scarlett
I am the diaspora
And as I remember everything I'd forgotten to want,
my eyes sting with the salt water of their stormy seas
For all my life apart
I choose the sun
and I will chase it till it sets
|
