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

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

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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.

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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?