8.
Nothing can go wrong on a day like this,
at the county fair with my friends and their kids,
and we’re all kids wherever there’s a 500 pound pumpkin,
a squash resembling Jay Leno,                                              
fried Twinkies and Oreos,                                                                             
kudzu tea, kudzu blossom jelly, kudzu vine wreathes,
4-H Club heifers and a newborn goat which peed like a toad when I lifted it,
we’re all kids drinking lemonade
spiked with vodka, strolling between the rackety wooden cabins
waving our fans, “Jez Burns for Coroner” stapled on a tongue depressor,
then milling around the bandstand
where every third kid in the talent show sings “God Bless America,”
where the governor kisses babies,
where later “The High School Reunion Band”
makes everyone boogie from shared nostalgia and bourbon
and where
why not
I’m dancing in front of the speakers
and let the bassist pull me on stage, where
why not
I dance like I do for my bedroom mirror
Behold I Am A Rock Star 
I cross my wrists over my shirt front, grab a fist of hem in each hand,
gesture like I would shuck it off over my head
just to watch my fans go wild
I love Mississippi
later I tell D and A about it and they say
Neshoba County Fairgrounds
wasn’t that where the bodies of the civil rights activists were dumped?
Like the kudzu I’d stroll away, whistling,
hands behind my back,
like on a day when nothing, nothing can go wrong