I’m honored to have two poems in The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume X: Alabama (TRP: The University Press of SHSU 2023). To be among so many I admire — Gabrielle Bates, Emma Bolden, Tina Mozelle Braziel, Joel Brouwer, H.M. Cotton, Juliana Gray, Carolyn Hembree, Raye Hendrix, Elizabeth Hughey, Ashley M. Jones, Rodney Jones, Kwoya Fagin Maples, Jason Mccall, Lauren Goodwin Slaughter, Patti White, Jake Adam York — and so many I have yet to discover is a dream come true. I would have done anything to find a collection of voices like this when I was living in Alabama and stretching into the idea that I could make a real go of this. Thank you forever to J Bruce Fuller, Taylor Byas, Adam Vines, and William Wright for including me. I love what Byas says in her introduction: "The poems in this anthology walk alongside one another in a procession, bump into one another, converse, join hands." Yes, I hope so, and we do.