Fluent

Fluent

If I spoke a language other than drawl,
I'd have words other than my own
to say blue and green and hazy.

I'd tell you how summer has shredded
the Southern sky - made a montage
of Brazilian bits and Caribbean strips,
woven with a breeze of tropical sea.

With a Bahama-watercolor tongue
I'd paint the shades of my garden
and whisper how the Nile has descended
as a haze too thick to breathe.

But I speak strictly Dixie,
and it's Waxhaw Creek that babbles
over the fall of my backbone
and Lake Wylie that laps at my breasts.

Here,
peach-heavy branches bring the sun down,
and blackberry brambles swallow it whole.
It's strawberries and butternut squash
that climb the evening sky,
and summer days disappear
into a glass of muscadine wine and thunder.