KFC, or the taste of success is—wait for it—tender on the outside, tough on the inside

Birmingham
Heart of Dixie
Winter March
Superstorm 1993

Were we between
homes? Piecemeal
family packed into
North American

green four-door
Pontiac parked in
the swirl of cold
bundled together

Dad fed the engine
set to burn gas paid
with lesser Washingtons
who was there with

the five of us? Colonel
Sanders visited in
his pressure-fryer
bucket to bless us

with a secret incense
of eleven herbs and
spices wrapping up
a good paper meal

for a Korean household
christened again in
the name of chicken
new snow people

biting into crisp
country Southern
hospitality to melt
water crystals

We wasted nothing
even without power
waited for the gravy
train not knowing

what it meant to live
like it’s all gravy we
were warm enough
eating our laughs

one at a time
piling up joy
an avalanche
to remember