CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA

In the lowcountry,
            the gray moss hangs
like a threat from pecan trees,
            the sweetgrass whines
on the Isle of Palms,

and the magnolias are heavy
            with soft petals, loose
pink flesh. Bits of black pepper
            float in the soup made
from fresh-caught she-crabs,

yellow eggs clutched
            to their carapaces
like matched luggage.
             On the Battery,
chained cannons point

toward one-room single-
            family shacks abandoned
when the marsh rose up
            through the floorboards.
The indigo sky is clamped

over the bitter reek
            of the paper mill
that drenches the air. Shrimp flip
            and snap in a wagon
pulled by a damp man past yards

where children tease antlions
            with broom straws,
the insects waiting
            in the sand pits, pincers
drawn and eager for the bite.

Much like many other places, although completely differently, the South constantly contradicts itself. Implication is disconcertingly abundant, even while being denied.