Where He's From

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Where He’s From 


Even then it mattered much 

to him, how he was born 


in South Carolina, raised in North.

No one asked, or cared, but he 


split hairs on his right 

to the Palmetto sticker stuck 


on his high school truck, felt

his edges peel up round 


Tar Heel games and low-country broils

both. How could he have known 


it was the tension to which his life 

would persistently adhere? Hell,


with even heaven and earth,

wherever his tires touch 


and just past the reach 

of his high beams, his soul 


is humming in the inter-state, 

both there and here.


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