I hate sweating.
Let the Georgian heat squeeze drops
Off my brow and into the air
Where they disappear in a swirl of odor.
Lungs heaving in butterfly strokes,
Up and down,
Where they lodge with the words
I can’t say in my mouth.
I miss snow.
The silent crunch of each flake
And the rustle of a log
Crackling in a fireplace.
I miss baggy clothes, too.
Hiding my body in rags was never as easy
As it was in the north,
Where the cold hid itself each summer.
Here I am on display.
Tight trousers, tight shirts, tight belts.
Tight fuckin’ everything.
Tight lips, too.
Sure, the southern drawl
Evokes images of sweet tea,
Cotton fields,
The World of Coke and disappointment.
But each “Bless your heart”
Or Peachtree Road/Street/Avenue
Is a way to avoid saying
What northerners care too much to not say.
That we are all people
And that the sun’s baked radiance
Has cooked the South into briquettes
And the people into ash outlines of themselves.
So when you bump into someone oozing body odor,
And wringing the humidity from their clothes,
With a sigh of relief when the A/C kicks in
Remember that.
That we hide our words with sugar
While they protect theirs with daggers.
And both can be right.
Just depends on the temperature, I guess.