Mom went in there a
Week ago. Smiling, she said
Kudzu was on sale,

And they have Green Stamps!
She musta got lost in that
Leafy verdant vale,

Dodging sprightly vines,
Snagging stamps, adrift on the
Cut-rate kudzu trail. 

Gene Hyde lives near Asheville, North Carolina where he works as an Appalachian archivist. His writing and photography have appeared in Valley Voices, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, The Goose: A Journal of Arts, Environment, and Culture, Light: A Journal of Photography and Poetry, Canary: A Literary Journal of the Environmental Crisis, and Mountains Piled Upon Mountains: Appalachian Nature Writing in the Anthropocene.