Just off Highway 95

On the east side of the road

Sits a monolithic diner

Where the truckers all reload

The food's great and there's plenty

And the place is really clean

But the real reason they stop here

Is the Truck Stop Beauty Queen

She's a five foot 5 inch dynamo

A former Miss Biloxi Belle

She's a pepperpot of moxie

And a spirit you can't quell

Her hair's piled high upon her head

It's a blonde come from a bottle

Her attitude is bottle brewed

Her skin is slightly mottled

She holds court in the corner

At a little table in the back

She's telling stories to all who'll listen

And she's always talking smack

She talks about the drivers

All the people that she's seen

She's a former Miss Biloxi Belle

She's The Truckstop Beauty Queen

She used to wait the tables

Worked the till a little too

When a talent scout from Georgia

Took her back in fifty two

He sweet talked her like no one

That this girl had ever seen

He promised her the world that day

He'd put her on the silver screen

She left home in the dead of night

She left a note upon the car

You're better off without me here

And I'm better off by far

She was off to find her fortune

With her new man by her side

But by the time she reached Atlanta

She knew she'd been taken for a ride

She found out there was no future

He had no contacts, not a chance

There would be no movie stardom

She would not get to dance

She left but stayed in Georgia

She would build herself a life

She would make herself a winner

She would never be a wife

She took work in a small diner

And at night she hit the books

She was gonna help the others

Who'd be lied to for their looks

By sixty three she reached her goal

They called her to the bar

She was now  a full fledged lawyer

Could it be she'd come this far

She was adopted in Port Huron

Foster homes were all she knew

She made her mind up early

She would be one of the few

Who made it on her own accord

She would find a ticket out

Then one day in walked that stranger

That god ****** talent scout

She retired in the nineties

Though she will not say just when

And the day that she retired

She moved home to Michigan

She had no one there to meet her

When she came back home in June

She would keep her past a secret

She would sing a different tune

For she left to find her fortune

On the big old silver screen

She would come back home a winner

She would come back home a queen

She bought the little diner

On the side of ninety five

And by working there three days a week

She somehow came alive

She created little stories

Of a past she'd never had

She talked of her dear mother

And her tall,distinguished dad

The drivers loved to hear her

Tell her tales when they were by

And not one of then discovered

That her stories were all lies

She wouldn't ever mention

How she lived her life before

She would tell them just a litte

And she wouldn't say much more

She told tales of things of wonder

And of places that she'd been

And at one point she told how

She was a one time beauty queen

Now, we know that never happened

It was something in her mind

It was the reason that she left here

It was the dream she wouldn't find

But the drivers never questioned

And the diners loved the place

They came in all the time

To hear the stories, see her face

The diner was a gigantic

And three days a week t'was full

As they came to hear her stories

That they never knew were bull

The one they loved to hear

And the one she loved to tell

Was how that one day back in Georgia

She was the Miss Biloxi Belle

No one knew that she was lying

She was the best that had never been

But to all those at the diner

She was the Truckstop Beauty Queen

It's a life that never happened

Except for a few bits in between

It's the tale of Dinah Mussberg

The Truckstop Beauty Queen

the blue glow of the television screen
mimicked the moonlight through the car window
where sat, Kate and i, in silence, watching
after a day gone that began with my name and hers

continued on until her slumber
whilst a lunar halo around me kept me walking in the night

the Georgian oak canopy hangs around like aurora borealis
i’ve never noticed it before

now i'm from Georgia
never far from a mountainside
scent of earthen greed
down where hills do fly
but buried 'neath those hills
is a hate that runs deep
where preachers lie
for a false god, on their knees

now i'm from Georgia
land kissed by sea
fortune for the rich
and bloodlust for the freed
because the fog and the apathy
can be heard when they sing
liars, all of them
when they decree:
let freedom ring.

now im from Georgia.

Somewhere tucked on a bookshelf is a book.
Dogeared, yellow pages with a hand written note.

In a box, lie trinkets — gifts, a pendant of Annie, a book mark.
Hand made cards, smudged with time.

An old doll almost intact,
Broken spectacles, pictures, a watch and postcards.

Some may call it clutter, junk —
And it’ll all go when I go.

But to me, they are the reason behind my smile, an odd tear.

More precious than collectibles or art —
They are pieces of my life,
My world and heart.

Whispered words and stolen glances,
gloved hands clasp, fingers laced.
Hidden lines and hopeful chances -

In dim-lit parlors, a warm embrace.
Out of the shadows -
A flame.

my lover twirls grace and beauty
between her fingertips
her golden hair gleams like sunlight
and her breath flows like wind
i can liken her to flowers
but they hold no candle to her
she moves like a river
gentle, slow, and flowing
i understand now the desire
that Eve had that day in Eden
aching to feel the sweet nectar
flow down her chin and to her breast
wanting to taste what she never could have
and, God, did it feel good.

i can never love you the way i claim — delicately and without violence. i remember hating flowers and broken seashells, and my grandmother, hand-sewing pastel dresses. deep down, my bones are raised on stories of ancient wars and biblical battles carried from memory to memory, a string of generational blunders — i am made of my father's bitterness and my mother's denial. so i will love you with corruptions and apologies, with bled-out  veins, giving in like an emptied river, with all the poems i have read and forgotten, and with everything that makes me finitely human.

tell me to walk right ahead,
and say you'll be right there to take care of me
through all the messy parts of changing and
maybe for a while,
we could grow a little bit older together
unfit lovers that we are,
until my body gets weirder and bolder and
more beautiful than I could've predicted.
and you could fall for me then,
be a little selfish too,
ask me to wait while you're the one walking,
or to follow when the change is in you,
and i would,
i would.