Southern Legitimacy Statement: I used to be illegitimately Southern, living in South Florida until recently, now having completed my first year in the Tarheel state of NC. I grew up in a family that made fun of Southerners and now that I have gotten to know some of them quite well, I am glad that I am dispelling the ignorance I was born into. My fiancee is from a coastal Carolina town of 300 folks and they have been thoroughly kind in Church and in home.

Two Poems

Middle School News

The school newspaper is delivered to class
and hands shoot up
wanting a copy

black and gray in a world of bright screens
they open it
disappearing behind walls of paper

some read it front to back
some flip to sports or comics
others look for friends

with all the nail-biting
you’d think the stock market crashed
but here every section is local

at the sound of the bell the walls fall
until the last defense is a brunette
still admiring her front-page picture

Second Date

You talk but my mind talks louder
thinking of something funny to say
about what you said a few seconds ago
half-hearing what you’re saying now

I tell you my hilarious reply
not so hilarious apparently
and I realize you realize
I wasn’t really listening

I present my defense hopeless from the start
still hoping I can clever my way out
the size of my gestures only right
for guiding a plane or directing traffic

you stare at my antics until I am quiet
What was it my dear you were saying again