Southern Comfort

Genuine niceness
learned and practiced
as gentleness
mixed with kindness
extended to me
anonymous white person
by several black hostesses
at different kiosks
in the Atlanta airport
during a stopover stay.

These solicitous gifts
stirred deeply felt memories
of my South Carolina childhood
when I was cared for
by Florrie, Rosa, and Verda
and of sweet Jessie
who cooked next door
and sent me home
at end of long play-days
with three, still-warm-from-the-oven biscuits
small, buttered, perfectly flaked
wrapped carefully in a paper napkin
that I greedily devoured
before arriving at my back door
fifty feet away.

I am divorced
in various ways
from my native south
and when I visit now
mostly for funerals
I cherish conversations
joyous and accepting
with random, black strangers
refreshing my heart's connections
to long-ago, soul-forming comfort.