Abbie Briggs

You can take the girl out of the trailer park, but you can't
take the two-bit-grit-twisted-wrist-behind-your-back-
lip-splitting-trailer-park-sass out of the girl. It grinds
into her skin. You'll find a full rind on all of them. It's the
feistiness that fortifies those four flimsy walls. I'd call it balls,
but we all know they can't take a hit. We all know
it's the pussy that has the real tenacity. And if you've ever
been in a trailer during a tornado, you'll know the gall it takes
to stand tall when the wind comes kicking. The granite
it takes to clean up after the tantrum. The grace it takes
to forgive it. Each woman I watched create a loaves and fishes
miracle out of her crumb-and-tin-stocked-matchbox-sized kitchen
taught me to associate my pussy with power. Every winter shiver
was a kegel exercise. Every eighty-degree-open-window night
blew the sheets off our evolving muscles. While the men
passed out on couches with cigarettes in their mouths, the women
were showing their daughters how to spit their words with red-hot
holiness, to chuckle in the face of dependence. Every cackle
conjured a spell injecting saintly vulgarity. Walking on cinder blocks
lifts women to this divinity. No full-price-name-brand demeanor
in our Manor. Can't acquire a taste for things you can't afford,
but that's okay because once you find how to fill your belly
with ingenuity, sticking your tongue to something too rich
will only make you sick.