She’s Florida Missouri But She Was Born in Valhermosa and Lives in Ohio

My mother’s named for places, not Sandusky that has wild hair soliciting the moon like blue-black clouds touring. Not Lorain with ways too benevolent for lay life. Ashtabula comes closer, southern, evangelical and accented, her feet wide as yams. She’s Florida Missouri, a railroad, sturdy boxcars without life of their own, filled and refilled with what no one can carry. You just can’t call somebody Ravenna who’s going to have to wash another woman’s bras and panties, who’s going to wear elbow-length dishwater to formal gigs, who’s going to have to work with her hands, folding and shuffling them in prayer.