One With Others (Excerpt)
By C.D. Wright
Album not known
Go back to your search "Promises 90s"
Not the right song? Post your comment for help
Some names were changed or omitted in light of the in-
terpretive nature of this account. Others because they
still live there. People may have been rendered as sem-
blances and composites of one another. And others,
spoken into being. Memories have been trapped, and
newspapers consulted. Books referenced. Times fused
and towns overlaid. This is not a work of history. It is a
report full of holes, a little commemorative edition, and
it inspires to the borrowed-tuxedo lining of fiction. In the
end, it is welter of associations.
Up and down the towns in the Delta, people were
stirring. Cotton was right about the shoe top. Day lilies
hung from their withering necks. Temperatures started
out in the 90s with no promises of a good soaking. School
was almost out. The farm bells slowly rang for freedom.
The King lay moldering in the ground over the year. The
scent of liberation stayed on, but was hard to bring the
trophy home. Hard to know what came next; one thing,
and one thing only was known, no one wanted to go
home dragging their tow sack; no one wanted to go
home empty-handed.
Over at the all-Negro junior high, a popular teacher has
been fired for "insubordination" for a "derogatory"
letter he wrote the superintendent saying the Negro
has no voice. No voice at all. It was the start of another
cacophonous summer.
It smells like home. She said, drying. And I, What's that you smell, V. And
V, dying: The faint cut of walnut in the grass. My husband's work shirt on the
railing. The pulled-barbaque evening. The turned dirt. Even in this pitch I can
see the vapour-lit pole, the crape myrtle not in shadow. My sweet-betsy. That
exact streaked sky. The mongrel dog being pelted with rain. Mine eyes pelted.
All fear. Overcome. At last. No scent. That's what she said. Dying in the one-
room apartment in Hell's Kitchen.
MR. EASTER, AN OUTLIER [with FISH 4 SALE]: It's probably a rat
snake. Had a couple in the old storm cellar. My son-in-law accidentally caught it
on fire and it killed ever one of my snakes.
terpretive nature of this account. Others because they
still live there. People may have been rendered as sem-
blances and composites of one another. And others,
spoken into being. Memories have been trapped, and
newspapers consulted. Books referenced. Times fused
and towns overlaid. This is not a work of history. It is a
report full of holes, a little commemorative edition, and
it inspires to the borrowed-tuxedo lining of fiction. In the
end, it is welter of associations.
Up and down the towns in the Delta, people were
stirring. Cotton was right about the shoe top. Day lilies
hung from their withering necks. Temperatures started
out in the 90s with no promises of a good soaking. School
was almost out. The farm bells slowly rang for freedom.
The King lay moldering in the ground over the year. The
scent of liberation stayed on, but was hard to bring the
trophy home. Hard to know what came next; one thing,
and one thing only was known, no one wanted to go
home dragging their tow sack; no one wanted to go
home empty-handed.
Over at the all-Negro junior high, a popular teacher has
been fired for "insubordination" for a "derogatory"
letter he wrote the superintendent saying the Negro
has no voice. No voice at all. It was the start of another
cacophonous summer.
It smells like home. She said, drying. And I, What's that you smell, V. And
V, dying: The faint cut of walnut in the grass. My husband's work shirt on the
railing. The pulled-barbaque evening. The turned dirt. Even in this pitch I can
see the vapour-lit pole, the crape myrtle not in shadow. My sweet-betsy. That
exact streaked sky. The mongrel dog being pelted with rain. Mine eyes pelted.
All fear. Overcome. At last. No scent. That's what she said. Dying in the one-
room apartment in Hell's Kitchen.
MR. EASTER, AN OUTLIER [with FISH 4 SALE]: It's probably a rat
snake. Had a couple in the old storm cellar. My son-in-law accidentally caught it
on fire and it killed ever one of my snakes.
Go back to your search "Promises 90s"
Not the right song? Post your comment for help
Showing search results from SongSearch