tax season

your tax lady
of three decades
works out of a cape
cod house
along route 28, in
a section of Virginia
that still
believes that the south
will rise again.
Dixie flags fly
high and low
on beat up cars
and trucks
across the old
battlefields.
cows loom large,
standing in one's
or two
with weeds
hanging from
their mouths,
and yet she files
electronically.
she's small and
stout, hair curled
wildly on it's
own thin ground,
a character
out of a wrinkle
in time. full of
magic numbers.
she likes
to say things like
I hope they don't
put us in jail
this year, as
she hands you back
your finished return
and points to the line
where you need to
initial, initial,
or sign.