Down South there's long syllables
porch sitting

Down Dixie-way when a girl is seen getting out of line
squirming in church
yanking her hairbow big-as-a-country church off her head

the nearest adult says Don't act ugly
Being pretty
the core mainstream definition of southern woman.

(Up Northeast
in Cape Light
the Northern tall woman is lighting matches. She has thrice filled her lachrymareum.)

Below the Mason-Dixon, If you're worth your boot
you act like Scout Finch
not Little Eva.You don't fiddle with yourself. Nice girls don't touch.

          I acted ugly.felt mean:
          but no one turned me round
          to face clapboard confections: the old Bingo club turned into place of worship.

Driven back, in transport,
I had cheeks leeched:
pale as the china dolls in her persimmon dress: shimmering like orange jello, taffeta a-blow.

          who iron-corseted in the closet
          her repenting box

with the bleeding wallpaper flowers quince dress & chestnut torn tresses

          Fate (say the Greeks) is simply what happens.
          A fever commenced with the bisque doll this morning mounting her brow by late noon,
          taking her China-green eyes & turning them crimson.
          Up North in a line elegant as a ballerinas port de bras
          In the room that grief remembered

for as long as the Hassidim have been telling tales
          which is from the beginning a Northern woman is keening her silver exotic husband,
          inamorata, yet deeply American, deeply, astonishingly gone.