WEBVTT

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So this poem comes from
a USA Today headline,

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and this is about the
marker that was shot up.

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Three Ole Miss
students used guns

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to vandalize a memorial
to lynching victim Emmett

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Till, July 2019.

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They posed their bodies
as if they've just bagged

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their first 10 point buck.

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One holds a shotgun, another
squats below a shot up sign,

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a third stands with an AR-15.

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Three faces smiling, hoisting
guns in front of a bullet ridden

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marker.

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This is the site where Till's
body was removed from the river.

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It is hunters' hours.

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The sign's jagged holes
could slice a finger.

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Those students are
someone's sons or brothers.

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Not much older than
the young Black boy.

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His body beaten, tethered
to a 75 pound cotton gin fan

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and thrown into
the Tallahatchie.

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This is an old story,
a Southern Gothic.

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To deny this boy's
life and then deny

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the marker that says he
lived breaks me every time.

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The camera captures the night's
dark cover, the tall grasses,

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the momentary flash illuminating
their shit eating grins

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and gun barrels glint.

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Lifetimes of getting
away with it.

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