“First Generation” by Leigh Ann Roman

The first of my family to leave these hills,
an immigrant to the middle of America.
The stories my mother handed down
more real to me than the evening news.

Stories of wallpaper
made from newsprint,
school dresses sewn
from flour sacks,
quilt tops stitched
from cemetery ribbons.

Stories of love without words.

Love that churned butter
stirred soup beans,
fried fruit pies,
Love that could read your fortune
in coffee grounds.

Fortune, what a comedy
in those hills of poverty and tragedy,
where musicians went deaf from winter’s cold,
where liquor burned through entire families.

Here in the middle of America,
the edges of life are smooth.
Love pays tuition
upgrades your iPhone,
pays the lacrosse dues.

Dresses come from Aeropostale.
Fortune can be found
in Fidelity,
not coffee grounds.

Out here
in the middle of America,
I feel cracks in my soul
where the mountain used to be, and I wonder,
if I could live where the land touches the sky,
would I then be whole,
or just broken in different places?

Leigh Ann Roman is a native of Eastern Kentucky who makes her home in Memphis, TN. A former newspaper reporter, she has worked on the staffs of the Tennessean in Nashville and the Memphis Business Journal. Her creative nonfiction and poetry have appeared in Appalachian Heritage and Faith West Tennessee. 

**Featured image from Pexels