This is you, girl: deep Delta earth.
The murkyblue room you live in.

You may be hip with that tripwire swagger
but you bear the countenance

of a paradise lost, Marlboros you never smoke
tucked into your shirtsleeve, your ashtray

full of nothing but peach pits.
In a town this small, you can tell your story

and move on. Don’t be fooled by dreamy pastorals:
our parade of kudzu cut by the hush

of passing traffic, its low-tide sound
under moonlight whitening queens anne’s lace

where wind bends it toward the ditchbanks.
It’s all fool’s gold, girl. No man’s love

need nail you down. Why stay
just to pace Main Street slowly,

as if guided by uncertain clues.
Come any town you choose,

you can flee into a new day’s embraceable light.
So go ahead: take the road out of here.

You’ll recognize it by the way it divides
like a lightning-split oak.

Your future is goodbye.
I have warned you.