sparta, georgia

I have spent up my days
slow tongued
straight from the old cotton smells,
the yellowed lace coverlets,
the porcelain washbasins, blue-flowered,
the wood aching with age.
an emptiness clings to ancient space
saying too many have come through here you are nothing.

I have come up aching
slow sleeping through thick summers
time is at work swamplike here we
all sleep and chew corn ground into sand.

they say there is fresh earth
around you. they say there is much
to be loved, hot smell of wet earth,
spanish moss, regal, overhanging, the
last mistake of my womb
slow mouthed, sucking.