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 peeling up round 

Tarheel games and low-country broils

both, those people who could 

answer the question in a clean

cut, who didn’t need 

to pick. How could he 

have known it was the tension 

to which his life would persistently adhere? 

Wherever he is and just past 

the reach of his high beams, 

his soul hums in the inter-

state, both there and here. 

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