Georgia, girl
or state or country,
I’m sorry;
I shouldn’t apologize to you,

you with your flat back
leaning against the rest
of the land like
you’re tired of being;

Georgia, you are
a meaningless name
right now, just something
plucked from a screen

recalled at a random time,
pictured now as a young girl
waiting for me, or
a cold nation somewhere else, or

a warm state
swimming in peaches,
or other stereotyped figures
I made up in childhood;

I know now that I know you
only this way and my choosing you now
doesn’t negate the fact that
I don’t know what the hell

you mean to me, if anything.
You are a word and I trade in words
as if each single word was a coin
or a bill and I can spend or save it

as I please. Georgia,
forgive me; I’m sure
you solidly mean something
specific to someone

at the moment but
to me you are just another
pair or sounds slipping
from me, from my tongue

this time, no lips needed,
naming a country, a state,
a girl I never knew in real life,
an imaginary thing

attached to a word I know
anew, right now as if
I was hearing it for the first time,
sound sticking to me

as if I’d invented the word, Georgia,
as if a name was fresh and new
waiting to be attached to something
then released to this wide, wide world.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
T