The Perique: (The Most Strongly Flavored of All Tobaccos)
Rent from DeepDyve- The Perique(The Most Strongly Flavored of All Tobaccos)
For Wanda Marie
when her husband threw his back out —the day before the big move my sister grabbed the other end of the mattress and everything else I coaxed from the back of the truck with the dexterity of a tobacco cutter doing the work of two
ignoring my caution and her fatigue she reminded me she was made of the old stuff —the same stuff as our mother and almost all the Warners born and raised in the burley fields of Washington county
her nostrils flared and I saw it, burning slow her scowl, a cellulose filter, squinting to adjust her own tar and nicotine just like the night she stood toe to toe with mamma
defiant, obstinate, declaring herself grown —too grown for any more ass whuppings, refusing to duck or flinch each attempt to beat her back into a little girl’s box
when that last slap struck something iron her nostrils were the only evidence of the size of the bellows she held in check [End Page 90] flat on her back, beneath undefended flailing she shot me a look that made me throw my arms around mamma’s exhausted limbs and anemic tongue lashing, fall backwards, beg her to stop and pretend I was holding the victor [End Page 91]
Frank X Walker is the current Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. He is the originator of the term, “Affrilachia,” and editor of Pluck! A Journal of Affrilachian Arts and Culture. He serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Kentucky. He is the author of six poetry collections, most recently, Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers (2013).
