~ Delta Poetry Review ~

It Bothers Me

It bothers me.
It do, Harold. It really do.

I know he were a gen’le man.
He once’t brung me some liniment
when I were gored by Thompson’s bull
and laid aback a week in bed.
‘Nother time he pulled my Johnny from the river
and for shore saved his little life.

But them men in sheets,
they tells me I were wrong—
that white trash like me and you, Harold,
orta kiss they feet for the good they done us.
We orta feel better knowing that
We ain’t on no bottom rung.

And th’ judge, he say it’s a unwrit law.
An’ th’ preacher, he say it’s the will of God.
An’ Mista Thompson, he say a black man orta knowed better.
An’ me, I say school made they brains grow and they hearts shrivel up..

I don’t know what them sheet devils say he done.
An’ I wouldn’ta believed them no way.
I know he were a gen’le man.
an’ they’s all on a rung beneath him now.

When I think on it, it bothers me.
It do, Harold. It really do.