Tara
        Greene County, Missouri Ozarks

No movies filmed inside of shattered ruins. No ruins. No vast stretches, no oak allées. Nary
a strand of Spanish moss. No Mississippi. No rice, no cotton, no coffee table book. No
climate controlled tour: gift shop, belle dolls, ceramic slaves. Magnolia-scented soap. There
are tarantulas the size of dinner plates. Log house with a door on leather hinges rotting
through the war. I thought, I fit's not wealth, then I don't have to worry. I fit's not picturesque. Farm,
farm, not plantation — Tintype, daguerreotype: four-fingered man. His bride of the crooked
mouth. Not once, not twice, but great-great-great. The beeswax masking smallpox scars
melting in the heat. In a South that's anything but deep — Who walks towards me out of oats
and corn?

Copyright © 2010 Catherine Sasanov All rights reserved
from Had Slaves
Firewheel Editions
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission