The Beautiful South  
('you would have to have been born there')



we live 
in the village   
on this sharp street   
we live by the boneyard   
we die young    I have 
an ivory comb   I have a ghost 
house of rocks up the hill   
I have two dogs -- one large, 
one small   I have rows of scars   
(sometimes my hands go numb)   
I have an oval portrait of my mother
you see that she is dead   I was born 
too early   too late  (I have 
never had a lover)  almost 
everyone I know is dead   almost 
everyone I love
I have made them up   		(there are no people in my head)   
I have words I string 
together to make stick figures
I have ghosts    I keep 
their pictures in my house   I move 
them from place to place   
in the pictures they are all eyes
(I am living someone else's life)
I kept them up everywhere 
until I no longer could