Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia

This is what history is

HILDA DOWNER 185 THIS IS WHAT HISTORY IS from Bandana Creek (1979) Grey house in which grandparent would have grown, where a wife may have taken for granted what I watch onceman shaving in porch dark. All that matters is his back, naked. Downed in bed, his feet extend drawerknobs over edge. The cliff of his side, too big to feel my presence, everyone he has ever touched touches me. A WOMAN IS SEGMENTED AS AN ANT from Bandana Creek I crawl into bed as a woman, and lay thinking as a woman. Quilt covers and reveals. I want to express the soft of my mouth, that a dead poet knows me. Blue pains and tight fears embraced with sky of quiet, I wait as a woman waits. I like my own smell. No man has known me beautiful when I am alone and woman, still or stirring, a drawing power in the shoulders, waist hidden from vertical glance, ...