I Am a Town

I’m a town in Carolina
I’m a detour on a ride
For a phone call and a soda, I’m a blur from the driver’s side
I’m the last gas for an hour if you’re going twenty-five
I am Texaco and tobacco
I am dust you leave behind
I am peaches in September, and corn from a roadside stall
I’m the language of the natives, I’m a cadence and a drawl
I’m the pines behind the graveyard
And the cool beneath their shade
Where the boys have left their beer cans
I am weeds between the graves
My porches sag and lean with old black men and children
My sleep is filled with dreams, I never can fulfill them
I am a town
I am a church beside the highway where the ditches never drain
I’m a Baptist like my daddy, and Jesus knows my name
I am memory and stillness, I am lonely in old age
I am not your destination
I am clinging to my ways
I am a town
I’m a town in Carolina
I am billboards in the fields
I’m an old truck up on cinder blocks, missing all my wheels
I am Pabst Blue Ribbon, American, and 'Southern Serves the South'
I am tucked behind the Jaycees sign, on the rural route
I am a town
I am a town
I am a town, southbound