Friday, September 4, 2020

#009 Marilyn Nelson, 1989

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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