Alabama Pace
       

When two teenagers sit in a pick-up truck in a Wal-Mart parking lot smoking weed and

        talking in hushed tones and jumping at the sight of headlights and

When some little skinhead spray-paints a friend's trailer bright red all-caps Q-U-E-E-R-S and your first

        thought is to call the cops and your second is to do anything but call the cops

When a shiny black silverado rolls down a tinted window to shout at two kids walking on the highway,

        "What are you?" and damn could you give us a break it's two pm on a Tuesday

When I'm slinging burgers and an old man in a Korean war vet cap reaches through the

                window to grab my uniform shirtsleeve, touch my tattoos with purple fingers, and

When a deer carcass rots on Highway 98 for a few days before anyone gets out to it

        and we swerve to miss it but still run over the legs, when we feel it through the tires,

When church gets out and little old white women flood the streets in their Lily Pulitzer and

        wide-brim straw hats and shout-speak gossip about other old white church ladies and

When we all squeeze into a bathroom stall to shave a girl's head, laughing and maybe breathing

        in a little hair, rubbing our hands over her scalp, closed away from the outside, and

When the rat snakes in my basement start creeping up the stairs in the summer and when

        love bugs paint the front of my car and when stray cats sun themselves on the porch

When the kudzu chokes the live oaks and the bays and swamps sparkle and we jump from the

        dock in t shirts and khaki fast food uniform shorts and get a break from the heat and

When we all donate a little bit to our friend's go fund me for surgery and we bring jugs of clean

        water to his apartment with the bad pipes and watch each other get to our cars and

When we gather and cook for each other and talk about a different place, somewhere with

        giant trees and seasons, a farm with no overtime or church ladies or spray paint,

When we can walk together for miles on a gravel road and never see another soul, never have to

        confront how we might be seen by a passing car glimpsing only our hair and our walk,

When we can kiss each other goodbye every morning at dawn, and know we will kiss each other hello

        at sunset.

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Copyright © 2022 Em Palughi All rights reserved
from Black Warrior Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission