USA

vhairh@yahoo.com

SOUTHERN LADY

"Did you know there are no abused black children?
Because their grandmother's raise them," says Fleeta.
They try to trick you when they clean your house
By moving things around and unplugging them.
We're at her kitchen table
She talks and i listen,
About her ninety-two years of unmarried life
The last of her kind
She's a real southern lady stands straight and over six feet tall
At first she lives upstairs, in the hundred old home
Washes her clothes out in the old bear claw tub,
And cooks on a hot plate, until she can no longer climb the stairs.
She never bothers to learn to drive
She walks daily to the grocery store-post office-doctor's office-
And to work at Guenard's Drug Store.
She observes from the cosmetic counter work station
The married folks secretly meeting in the back of the soda shop
And me carving V. loves R. in the booth while I drink my lemon coke.
She'd play the piano at home and at church
And reads the bible daily until her eyes grew dim.
The Eatern Star--Wesley Circle-sister Mabel-
Nephew Billy-- are her next of kin.
She's a collector,
Her room's her vault
Her valuables are some where in the stacks of old magazines-
National Geographics-boxes of Little Debbie oatmean creme's--
Clothes--shoes-empty meals on wheel cartons and medicine bottles.
With the chop-chop-chop of her axe-the help of GOD--
And her other clever senses
She retains her ten organs of touch.
We smwll the aroma of fresh cabbage greens or ruta bagas.

© Copyright, 2000, Victoria H. Hicks.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.