11.10.2020

letter of a foreign font

When I die here, 
for I sense this, I'll die in Mississippi, 
state with the sing-songiest name 
I remember, at five, learning to spell— 
when I die here, 
my singular stone will stand alone 

among the Falkners and Faulkners, 
the Isoms and the Neilsons, these headstones 
which fin down hills like schools of fish. 
I'll be a letter of a foreign font, 
what the typesetter used to call a bastard. 

And even when my husband and daughter 
are dragged down beside me, 
their shared name 
won't seem to claim my own, 
not to any horseman passing by. 

Listen, kin and stranger, 
when I go to the field and lie down, 
let my stone be a native stone. 
Let the deer come at dusk 
from the woods behind the church 

and let them nibble acorns off my grave. 
Then let the kudzu blanket me, 
for I always loved the heat, 
and let its hands rub out my name, 
for I always loved affection. 

[Beth Ann Fennelly {1971- } '13' from 'The Kudzu Chronicles', in Unmentionables]

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