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

Their 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.

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