he was technically your grandmother’s third husband
but the only one to feel real and safe and perfect
the first one, your mother says, was a violent drunkard
and the second a half-formed attempt at a rebound
In the end, at fifty-one and fifty-eight, they will marry
and you’ll grow up calling him grandpa.
on summer vacation, when you go out to gilmer county
and sit on the porch swing, the two of them will teach you
how to play cinch, an appalachian knockoff of pinochle
that had never really been about the cards anyways
but about an excuse for all the neighbors to step into
the revolving door your grandparents call a house
your parents told you to think of him whenever you turn
on a light because it was people like him, in the heart
of west virginia and kentucky that still power america today.
reconciling your passionate liberalism and your empathy for
the livelihoods lost, the long-abandoned trailer parks
the painkiller dispensaries disguised as pharmacies
dotting the sides of mountain towns like traps
will be one of the hardest things you will ever do.
republican politicians will prey on their pain in town halls
and you will wonder how many people really understand
what the affordable care act is when they go to the clinic
and slide medicaid insurance cards through the window.
you will want to explain the details of the expansion,
how the aca is the reason they can be there but
you know they won't listen to a city girl so you stay quiet.
inside, though, you'll thank god for obama because without
him you'd be paying for your grandfather’s funeral instead
of the oxygen tank you can hear through the walls
as you browse your liberal websites in the guest bedroom
in the end, it won’t surprise you as much as you think it will.
he will be eighty-six, an ex-coal miner and smoker.
when you try to write about it, you’ll stumble upon the fact
that west virginia has the second highest death rate
in the nation and that, also, will not surprise you.
A/N: This is what happens when the prompt is to write about your heritage, but you're a boring white girl.
