Graduate of the All-White High School,
first year of Integration-by-Choice.
I did not participate.
I was in the theater practicing.
I was a smart kid and I, sort of, knew I was going to leave,
and that high school was just something
you had to get through to get to the rest of your life.
All-Negro High School Annual.
Best dancer, one of the boys beaten by the Night Riders.
Biggest wolf, son of one of the boys
blinded by the Night Riders.
Friendliest, his brother who jumped from the overpass.
Best Running Back, his cousin, went pro in Canada.
Smartest, her cousin had his own car.
He drove her to Ohio still wearing her cap and gown.
Atmospheric washes of sound
play it muddy
play it freaking loud
lights sputtering out and crackling
the only sure thing in those days were the prices
Jack Sprat teabags only $0.19
a whole fryer is $0.59
a half gallon of Purex $0.25
2 pounds of Oleo $0.25
Ivory soap $0.10 a bar
Cherokee freestone peaches, five cans for $1
and the temperatures
Los Angeles enters its sixth day of rioting, 32 dead
Chicago's rebellion ends in two
KKK's lawyer dies in Birmingham
Hurricane Camille sacks Pass Christian
the president of the Cosmos Club holds a tea
soybean cyst nematode pits the county's crop under quarantine
three Brinkley children die in an ice box
it is time to pick the cotton.
Radio Ministry, every chosen one of us is guilty as sin.
And sin is on everything a sinner ever touched,
from toilet seat to door knob to gavel to gun lock.
Now, get in that goddamn water and swim with the rest of them.
I must have misheard him.
The Savoys
Come again
My band.
We were the Savoys.
Her Friend Birdie.
We couldn't wait to go to V's house in the afternoon.
Dell would call and say let's go to V's, and I would say,
I've got to yadayadayadayada.
And Dell would say, just squirt some furniture polish
in the air and Joey will think you've
been cleaning all afternoon.
The first time I met her, she told me about her goldfish
committing suicide.
She showed me a picture of her daddy.
How old do you think he is in this picture?
Hah, she said, he was an alcoholic
and he was only 58 years old.
She would have Enrico Caruso, and Nina Simone,
and Segovia, Bach, and Leonard Cohen,
and Joan Baez and the Man in Black, all on the same stack.
We had a whole education in fine arts and literature
in her living room.
You've got to read this and you've got to read that.
She had a lending library going on.
You're not ready for James Joyce, she told me,
and I never did read James Joyce.
I just accepted it.
We went big into T.S. Eliot, so I knew all about Cats
before it ever got to Broadway.
We listened to A Child's Christmas in Wales every year.
Dell and her husband, Joey, made it over to Wales
and laid a rose on the drunkard's stone.
She could have been a master teacher, but she said, no,
she couldn't.
She said she had nothing but contempt
for her teacher when she discovered
she didn't know Swinburne.
One ought to admit V could rise in record time
to the condition of contempt.
Her Friend the Actor.
She once got on a wrathful tear about a particular member
of Congress or some churlish priest and ended up on her feet
in a lively enactment of how she would like to saw that MF
in half left-handed.
I guess an untidy job of it would hurt a lot more.
She kept her Saigon cinnamon in her purse
so the fifth boy child couldn't get his hands on it,
dragged her sewing machine to her porch
because she did not want to have to look at it
When she had cancer, after the last child was born
and had a hysterectomy, she didn't want anyone to know.
She didn't want them saying, that poor woman
with all those children and now she's got cancer.
She completed the circle of this life in Hell's Kitchen
the attending doctor lived upstairs
he and his partner nailed a small brass plaque
to the barren pear outside her window
her name, date of birth, date of death
the mule train march has been canceled
the preachers are staying home
the March Against Fear is on
the Man Imported from Memphis is walking
The combines are moving into position
Local Man, I was going to put a meat grinder on mine.
The Man Imported from Memphis had never laid eyes on her
before, this is not exactly a love story.
She pulled up beside him on the curve on the wrong side
of the street.
He's dead, she yelled.
He's dead!
Who's dead?
Hunter Crumb, he's dead!
Having just seen the prosecutor in his office,
having been there within the hour
trying to obtain permits for the march,
the Invader is taken aback.
He says to himself, this crazy white woman
thinks I killed him.
Now she is going to kill me.
Come here, I want to give you something.
No, I don't think I'll be coming over there, ma'am.
No, come over here.
I want to give you something.
Mr invader thinks he's about to become
Mr Goner and politely declines to approach.
She flings a gold chain at him and squalls off the curb.
Bling bling.
That's how they met.
Vines support an abandoned shack
vines conceal abandoned farm implements
people are walking out of the ragged fields
vines threaten the utility pole
vines protect the copperhead from the hoe
cottonwoods flutter as one
bats at the cell tower
the tub in which James Earl Ray stood
to slay the king has sold online
watch out for that phantom punch
it's like a river running backwards
the Man Imported from Memphis
credits a rubber shrunken head
he wears around his neck
for keeping the skies overcast
and temperatures down
If white people can ride down the highways
with guns in their trucks
I can walk down the highway unarmed
Scott Bond, born a slave, became a millionaire
wouldn't you like to run wild, run free?
The very Reverend Al Green
Hailed from here
Sonny Liston a few miles west
Sand Slough head hardened on hickory sticks.