Girl from North Carolina

There was that daisycutter mouth
Where children played
To the rules of the ante-bellum south

More the brushing the teeth
Than the drying of her tears
Was she

More than life
The boxing of cowboy boots boxed carefully
She’d gone with an oyster-man’s knife

Under the dry-tonguèd sounds of that seaside town
Memories of others and dreams of broken brothers
Populated with dry-lungèd doctors and secretaries

That bet ponies at the track.

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