Armed Men
Ray teaches at the Boley Baptist School,
a little too far away
to travel safely there and back
by buggy every day.
Some years she lets the children stay
on the farm with their doting father,
but this year they're toeing the line at school,
although keeping them here is a bother.
She has to watch them all the time:
Boley's a Negro town,
and sometimes carloads of white men
drive through, looking around.
Today, for instance, as she'd held
silk yard-goods to her cheek
and smiled at the extravagance,
she'd heard the screen-door creak,
and a young, fair-haired white man
had stalked in. His dismissing eyes
had registered over Mr. Oliver's store:
first contemptuous, then surprised.
Mr. Oliver said, Good morning, Sir,
one moment please. Miss Ray,
you look Easter-fine this morning.
Can I cut that silk today?
The white man spat a bad name;
Mr. Oliver prepared to fight.
The white man promised to bring some friends
and shoot up the town tonight.
And now, Ray's children expect her
to let them go out and run
through the twilit streets of Boley,
where each window holds a loaded gun.
written by Marilyn Nelson, The Homeplace, 1989.
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