Kelsey Werkheiser

virginia

 

there is a piece of me

that belongs to the south,

                                                                    in virginia.

wherein my heart is chocked full of

warm cinnamon apples

                              and biscuits and gravy,

                                                        for breakfast,

cornbread at dinner,

                              peppermint puffs in-between meals,

 

a constant in this house

heated by a wood fire stove,

              skirted with a wrap-around porch,

                              home to food bowls

                                                                    for stray cats.

 

i want rolling land,

                              fruit trees,

                                            farm animals,

                                                        the feeling that

                                                                    Glen Campell’s Southern Nights

                                                                                                            was written for me.

 

but there is no me in

churches every few miles,

shopping centers miles away.

 

                                                                    no me in military academies,

                                                                                 in mud-covered pickup trucks,

                                                                                 in MISSION BBQs.

i want the south,

but it does not want me,

                                              as me.

 

 

 

 Kelsey Werkheiser (they/them) was born in Easton, Pennsylvania, and is a current sophomore student at Bucknell University double majoring in Creative Writing and Sociology. They are currently News Co-Editor for their school newspaper, The Bucknellian. This is their first publication of their poetry.