Lee Ann Brown
Double Southern Register
Here in the Appalachians,
the phrase
I don’t care
gives consent.
Form follows function.
Form mirrors function.
The Mace family chair is said to
make the sitter quote
“forget about chairs”
Meaning
Chairs are ruined for you
Once you’ve sat in one you can sit in no other
(in Northern, it’s: Forget about it)
After tasting tomatoes fresh picked from a hot
North Carolina garden
I once wrote:
Tomatoes like warm bleeding hearts
and could eat no other after that:
ghostlike grocery store “hothouse”
varietals did nothing for me.
But songs are made from that rarified material
Language gives them a different nature
An antique that cannot be
contained, stroked or sold
A coverlet that will not rot
nor unravel.
