Virginia Town, 1963

VIRGINIA TOWN, 1963
by Elizabeth Massie

October wind, nutmeg leaves
Shrill call of crows stab the air like steely picks.
Uh-oh, Uh-oh.
Friday afternoon, school emptied of its charges who
Run-trudge-skip-tramp home or away to the South River
To sit beneath Main Street bridge, letting the heady pounding of
Cars overhead drown out thoughts, worries, fears.
To tear bad test papers to ribbons and float them away.
To light the little firecracker stolen from the flat-headed fifth grader,
Believing in promised anonymity because Moe Howard had said,
“Dynamite always blows down.”

Up from below, skimming rubber soled feet along the sidewalk
Past Hicks Store where a rusty bike leans against the brick wall
And a colored boy can be seen through the glass
Bagging for an old white woman in fake pearls.
Whispers stir about like firecracker smoke,
Monday ain’t goin’
Not nobody can make me not the teacher not the mayor not God.
Nods. But nods aren’t enough.
Swear, you hear?
Swears made with ash-coated fingers.

Down the alley, kicking up puddles, broken glass, a crusted jock strap
That Jamie thinks at first is a bra until she is made to cry.
Steamed breath carrying stories of utmost importance,
The flat-headed kid crapping his pants during play period,
Ringo Starr, the witch in the green stucco house over on Oak,
Halloween costumes yet to be made from cardboard boxes,
Colored kids from the colored school invading the white school on Monday.
Comin’ like cockroaches is what’s been told from older brothers
And granddaddies and ladies at church,
Comin’ to chew up everything, to make everything reek of themselves.

Parting words at back doors, Come over tomorrow!
We’ll make that robot that ghost that spaceman that knight that vampire,
Bring scissors glue markers tape brads wire but not your little sister that pest.
Voices drift with the call of the crows
Uh-oh.
Circling clotheslines, naked dogwoods, garage tops skewered by tilted lightning rods,
Vanish with the slapping of screen doors.

Hicks after dark.
Colored boy taps the kickstand up, pedals north across town, head down
Eyes ahead, stinging in the cold blast,
Past white schools, white churches, white cemetery with its white angels,
Pumping up the long graveled stretch then down
To the damp and dying earth along South River, tangled tapestries of fading
Goldenrod, chicory, milkweed,
To gather with friends beneath the Taney Road bridge, the heavy pounding of
Cars overhead drowning out thoughts, worries, fears.
Whispers stir about like cigarette smoke,
Monday ain’t goin’
Not nobody can make me not the teacher not the mayor not God.

Elizabeth Massie