Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia

Fat Sestina

546 LISTEN HERE to forgive. Jimmy Fiechter. In sixth grade you looked at his hair and knew he was destined to be a dentist. The artist, at five, wouldn't play outside. He couldn't stop looking at the Breughel. I stayed in at recess, to spend more time with the alphabet. We do what we have to, what we can, our part ofwhatever the truth is. I write. FAT SESTINA from Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel (1998) You could run over your television set with the truck, or pitch it off the mountain or shoot it like Elvis or to create an unusual planter, line with gravel, fill with dirt, peat and sand, then top with a mulch ofwood chips. Pine is best. When I hear the word pine and think fresh bathroom scent, I blame television. I rest before it like a sandbag , like a soft flickering mountain. I'm cracking my teeth on gravelhard popcorn kernels. I'm fat as Elvis at his last concert. Even then Elvis could still make me pine like a teenage virgin parked in a Chevy on a gravel road. Remember when you first saw him on television? So much for "She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain." So much for "Love Letters in the Sand." I left the sandbox , saved my allowance for Elvis records. We planted an antenna on the mountain, metal tree from an alien planet, landed among pine ANNE SHELBY 547 and poplar. We turned on the television and let it settle over us like fine gravel dust. Nobody bothered to pick beans or gravel potatoes anymore, preferring a sandwich in front of the television. Seasons changed. The Army got Elvis. I grew up quick but crooked, a pine in a wet spring. They stripped the mountain. Now I'm too old and fat for mountainclimbing . The neighbors' kids throw gravel at me from my own driveway. I pine for Lonnie, my high school boyfriend, warm sand on the riverbank. I mourn for Elvis. I microwave popcorn and turn on the television. It said on educational television, gravel in time turns to sand. When it does I'll be with Elvis on Pine Mountain. ...