I’ll be your cowboy. I’ll be your split-rail

fence on the highway, your crushed cans,

whiskey breath, buck teeth, barrel of a metal

gun. I’ll be your trailer park bar crawls. I’ll be

your three-legged dog taking a piss in a corn

field, your faded signs, your cocked fists, red

clay, rusted barn siding. I’ll be the hammers

on their hooks, the pocked apple trees, your rough-

necks yelling at the game, shooting range

on Sunday. I’ll be your black church, your white

city councils, your howling music and button-down

shirts, your road-side cantinas, your glass green-

houses. I’ll be the mountain’s bruised toes jutting out.

I’ll be Carolina. I’ll be the whole damn South.