Georgia
Chock full of images, an ode to the spirit of the New South.
Gravel peppers your pollen-filmed windshield
on Peachtree-wormed compound interstates
decorated by crossing failures and lost furniture.
Giant billboards shout of gun and bridal shows, last stops,
churches, lawyers, budget car repair, and surgeons.
Freight trains rumble through nighttime zombie towns
and long daylit trucks of tapered pine logs
snort and swing wide around two-laned corners.
Below the mountains, dashboards bake in the shade
at flat sand beaches or rolling pick-your-own farms,
while you’ll be abruptly deep-frozen indoors
(always carry a sweater in your purse in August!).
We are the New South—sprawling, smiling, soft-drawling
kitchen saints who’ll find, save, and feed your soul
off deer-rich swamp-spotted farmland marked “posted.”
Our scars and beauties are held equally sacred.
Short generations removed from segregation,
we mix cotton, hip-hop, peanuts, and Hollywood.
About the author
Christina E. Petrides began writing poetry in 2018. Her poetry collection isOn Unfirm Terrain(Kelsay Books, 2022). She is the author of three children’s books and translated Maria Shelyakhovskaya’s nonfiction memoirBeing Grounded in Love(Slavica Publishers/Three String Books, 2023).