She only weighs three pounds.
I fasten her baby gown to a pillow
with safety pins
so as she doesn't slip through
the crooks of my arms.
I couldn't eat much
once mommy found out
and sent me by train to her family
in Olive Hill.
I was born in Olive Hill, but I don't
remember much about living here
except mommy having baby sissy
and then baby sissy died.
“Laurelin, you're the oldest," mommy said.
"What kind of example is that for your sisters?"
Mae Ellen doesn't cry much.
They say it'll be a wonder if she lives.
She'll live.
She's quiet because she's already been an angel.
She don't know no kind of heavy.
She looks like an angel.
Little cupid bow lips.
I am sure she came a month early.
Daddy said he'd kill that son of a bitch.
Daddy's sheriff.
I wouldn't tell no one who it was.
I never will.
Daddy only said that once,
then he just stopped talking to me,
like he didn't see me.
Told mommy to take care of it.
When I bring Mae Ellen home,
I'm going to talk proper
like I've been somewhere important.
I've been practicing,
reading books out loud.
I'll make a teacher,
and I'll read to my pupils
about the grandest halls of Buckingham Palace,
like I've been there myself.
Because I don't sound like no hillbilly,
they won't know the difference.
Maybe I have been there.
Daddy and mommy both know how smart I am.
Mommy always told me that her great uncle was Henry Clay,
the Great Orator of Kentucky.
She always said we shouldn't count ourselves short.
They know I didn't let no man
take advantage of me.
They didn't raise me like that.
No, I let him inside me.
I wanted him there.
A girl doesn't feel very important ever
until she sees what kind of power she has over a man.
When he was inside me, he wasn't stronger than me.
It was like he had been thirsty for hours.
Like he just come out of the mine covered in dry soot
and had forgotten to refill his canteen before the shift.
When I saw how he looked at me,
I knew he'd do just about anything
in that one moment.
I let him have me.
I wanted to know how he'd turn all
that want into something
powerfully sweet.
Mae Ellen will wear curls
like Shirley Temple.
I'll tear up rags and wrap
them in her golden hair
until there are tight little ringlets.
We won't be ashamed, even when they whisper.
I'll hold myself like a movie star.
Like Mae West.
Maybe they'll think I was married a moment
to a rich man who died at sea.
They won't know no better.
I won't never tell who it was.
Not even Mae Ellen.
I'll talk proper when I get back
to Rocking Creek.
Mae Ellen will too.
It's October now.
Mommy said she'd send money for the train
after Christmas.
It'll be a cold ride home.
Kelli Hansel Haywood is a spiritual explorer, writer, public speaker, mother, and space holder for the relevance within the individual human experience, residing in Mayking, Kentucky. Kelli's first full length book, Sacred Catharsis: A Personal Healing Journey Amidst the Forced Pause of Pandemic, was published in 2021 by Belle History Publishing. Her other most recently published works can be found in Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy (West Virginia University Press, 2019), Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, and Women Speak Vol. 5 from the Women of Appalachia Project. She has also published long-form journalism, radio journalism, fiction, and blogs. Find her on Instagram @darkmoon_kelli.