Where I’m From #38

By Kim Rowe

Inspired by George Ella Lyon

I’m from window air conditioners,

from Happy Meals and Rainbow Brite.

I’m from the hills in every direction.

(Verdant, rolling, a compromise between the jutting, coal-rich Appalachias to the Southwest

and the horizontal, swampy farmland of Jersey to the Northeast.)

I’m from the peonie bush

the persimmon tree

whose fruit I loved because I loved

my grandpop.

I’m from homemade cherry pie and

arms heavy with shopping bags from Saturday at the mall,

from Alberta and Clayton.

I’m from the bursting laughter

and the rage on the road,

from you’re smarter than the average bear only child expectations and sliced onions in your socks for a fever.

I’m from As I lay me down to sleep

grace, even out to eat,

and the pettiness of sin and a vindictive God.

I’m from Goulds and Smith Holler,

sausage gravy breakfasts and Old Bay dusted blue crab afternoons.

From dinners by dad at 5pm sharp after construction work,

From a 90s woman in a hungry corporate world.

In my mom’s highboy dresser there were stacks of important papers,

among them my certificate of birth,

race marked as black,

though my hair and skin could only partially succeed,

even in the height of summer’s humidity and melanin’s rise.

All these disparities,

negotiated in dreams

before my flesh came to be.

I am from those moments of compromise,

of the north and the south, Black and White

and the family tree.

Where to find Alyson:

Website: https://www.alysonshelton.com

Substack: https://whereimfrom.substack.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/byalysonshelton/