Yankee Pride

spending my third night sleepless in the south. i need to be up in a couple hours for work, if you can believe it, but it seems i'd rather write instead of resting. go figure.

Yankee Pride

the log cabin behind me lies in the contagious quiet
that apparently all of carolina catches in the hour
and a half before midnight on a thursday, while i sit
smoking cigarettes beneath the star-streaked southern sky,
counting the constellations the north-east keeps suppressed
with layer upon layer of cloud cover and smog. years of city life
acts like a vaccine against such sleepiness. i plan
to catch up on my unconsciousness in the car.
this morning we made a wrong turn on the way
to work, because i was tired, so we wound up
driving down the dirt roads of your past.
i think that Puddin' Swamp is an absurd name for
a place to call your home, but you reminisce fondly
about bridge-fishing, the good eating that lurks
unsuspected beneath the highway. i doubt that
i could dwell in peace for long among the chickens
and the corn. your mother makes us sleep in separate
rooms when we visit her, so you shout your affection
across the hallway, but the bed i am assigned to still reeks
strongly of your absence. i fantasize idly about holding
the 80 dollar pillow beneath the bathroom sink in mimicry
of your shower-soaked hair, though i am at a loss for how
to recreate the smell of your shampoo. the moths dance
crackling across the light fixture, daddy longlegs creep
ominously about the wooden floor; i miss brooklyn,
and burgers, and condiments i can vaguely identify,
(i am so sick of chicken sandwiches and the special sauce)
but most of all i miss the way my mattress creaks contented
and sags beneath its familiar double burden.