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My cousin Tallie
was a real-life
award winning
beauty queen
from age six to eighteen

The kind who seems
a cardboard cut-out
Southern stereotype
all big hair and hype
manicured nails and
well arranged...
assets
but in reality
there was much more to Tallie

Her favorite movie
was Fried Green Tomatoes
and as far as movies go
it was good
but I never understood
until much later
why she loved it so

At first I thought
she was obsessed with the dish
she just 'had to try' fried green tomatoes
with fried catfish...
But it was actually
more about “Towanda!”
the primal, female battle-cry
 
And there was something electrifying
heartbreaking and mystifying
in the way she had the nerve to
let loose
a hullabaloo
screaming “Towanda!”
without reserve
fully, freely
like a woman
on the very edge
with nothing left to lose
and that was true

Tallie'd been abused
but somehow
nobody chose to see that part
that she actually had
had a heart
that someone had torn apart
Now Tallie's a badass
with blue-green hair
and a hard edged manner
devil-may-care
she has a tattoo
for each person she held dear
far and near
dead and gone
and no one knows why
she's evasive, withdrawn
as they spew out their judgments
in-between their
slow Southern
matter-of-fact yawns

With all the details noticed
while picking her to pieces
how did they miss the moment
her innocence was taken
faith in mankind shaken
How the barefoot, crazy-haired Tallie
running free, suddenly
stopped entirely, sparkle gone
certain sadness in dark eyes
and full-grown
this woman appeared
world-wise

And while they wonder
who the father of her
latest offspring could be
I wonder where the
adorably incorrigible
little Tallie is-
that used to be

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