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"The best ham in Louisville’s..." by Emily Blair

6/25/2021

2 Comments

 
Picture
Emily Blair is a queer Appalachian poet and writer currently living in North Carolina. ​

The best ham in Louisville’s in a deli in the back of a liquor store, no signs, salty-sweet and heavenly cold on a biscuit, made for picnics in the March sunlight, made for walking, and even these moments must be remembered.

​

When I come around all I want is salt. I beg God smite me like Lot’s wife. I step over sharp and broken
things, find the remote, sit, smoke, drink a pot of coffee, lick salt off my palm, choke down the forty cent
can of chili, force living, more salt, dream of ham biscuits in the sun, of picnics, of the life I never tried,
dream of dying, smoke all the cigarettes, go out in the rain, say hello to the cats, drink Gatorade, drink tea,
drink chlorinated tap water, pray for death, wake up, go to work, live, ask everybody the name of the deli,
nobody knows, is it a deli or do they just sell ham, what’s the fucking difference make, go to the park, eat
a sandwich alone, go home alone, stand just outside the circle of conversation in the dark, smoke all the
cigarettes, clean up broken glass, swear off dark liquor, repent, bargain, repent, beg for death, give in,
walk to the corner store, buy a bottle, drink it, feel better, lie on my stomach reading the Bible, Lot’s wife
doesn’t even have a name, get religion, lose it, go to the bar, lose it again, go to get that ham and the
cashier looks at me like I’ve lost my mind, why do I think they sell ham here, exactly?
2 Comments
Joseph Finkelstein link
1/5/2022 09:31:26 pm

I feel every word of this so much. Thank you. For just those thirty seconds it was okay. Where can I find more?

Reply
ben
4/14/2022 03:59:29 pm

i know about the ham in the back of the liquor store. I count my blessings every time an excuse can be thinly fabricated to go. I browse the bourbon. I drink lemonade and go back to the full wattage of sunshine just beyond the cocoon of a worn wood, dusty bitters, and civil war carpet. It's a love that seeks not to repair.

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