Classic Poem

No movies filmed inside of shattered ruins. No ruins. No vast stretches, no oak allees. 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, If it's not wealth, then I don't have to worry. If it'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?
Greene County, Missouri Ozarks