{"id":3036,"date":"2018-09-23T12:00:35","date_gmt":"2018-09-23T12:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/floridareview.cah.ucf.edu\/?post_type=article&p=3036"},"modified":"2018-09-23T12:00:35","modified_gmt":"2018-09-23T12:00:35","slug":"the-body-riddled-with-bullets-a-five-part-pastoral","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/the-body-riddled-with-bullets-a-five-part-pastoral\/","title":{"rendered":"The Body Riddled with Bullets: A Five-Part Pastoral"},"content":{"rendered":"

for Emmett Till<\/em><\/p>\n

On September 23, 1955, less than a month after Emmett Till’s lynching,
\n<\/em>his killers (who would later openly admit to the crime) were acquitted
\n<\/em>by an all-white, all-male jury in Sumner, Mississippi. Those killers
\n<\/em>died in 1980 and 1994 without ever serving a day of time.
\nNonetheless, we can still convict them here.<\/em><\/p>\n

i.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You don\u2019t remember, except the most
\nSignificant crickets,
\nSway, clack, clack
\nTill was still in the high blue grasses along the Tallahatchie River
\nAlong the Mississippi bullfrogs mark
\nThe browning rust of bullets: drown out the night by organs of earth:
\nGroaning, moaning, under weight of blankets of glimmering worlds.<\/p>\n

Tiller of men, women
\nwaves from the swamps drown out scratching hands clank, clack of shovels
\n\u201cEmmett Till did more than whistle at Carolyn Bryant\u201d
\nLook: there is nothing not even mud to rub
\ninto my eyes, into the ashes, among reeds and resurrections of night.<\/p>\n

We float down the river, on principle,
\ntoward hives of higher ground
\nThe wastes devour him from Glendora Mississippi
\nto the Freedom Trail highway
\nDown in the dark water, under the dark trees
\nLike a spiritual homing
\nThere is no double jeopardy in the swamp.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ii.<\/strong><\/p>\n

From Greenwood, MS, to Money, MS, signs travel
\nAnd I reach for the moon
\nAmong the dark vines\u2014
\nIn the buffalo clovers, in the prairie fringed orchids,
\nBleating from prairie chicken shrill
\nAsking heaven to bury the dead.<\/p>\n

The dead never sleep.
\nThey stare at small fires.
\nThey stare in the miles of prairie and contemplate steel shells like embers
\nGleaming in the moonlight.
\nAt uninhabited grassland, the dead dance
\nAnd wait outside houses of horrendous men.<\/p>\n

The dead are far off in the mountains.
\nThe dead grow native tongues and cause men to commit suicide
\nAmong shot up placards and sleepless nights, drinking,
\nAnd shiver in the bluegrass
\nLike stolen placards
\nKidnapped in gunsmoke
\nWith lutes of tallgrass.<\/p>\n

From Heaven, tears of white women and cries of black boys,
\nThe final preparations are made
\nIn the hollows and big bison creeks.
\nThe dead keep the culprits, their souls broken like body,
\nRidden in damnation
\nHe\u2019s never gone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

iii.<\/strong><\/p>\n

heavy cotton gin fan tied
\nto the ten-year-old’s neck with barbed wire
\nfloating down the dark church of the Tallahatchie River
\nDown in the dark water, under the dark trees<\/p>\n

\u201cBye baby\u201d and \u201cBye baby\u201d outside the candy shop
\nDragged delicately about
\nThe black water skiff hulks and sandy shoals
\nIn the Memphis night he, years later,
\nWould resurface
\nAs not guilty, preening as a Meadowlark
\nCalling to be released in the tallgrass
\nIn Ferguson, Missouri, hijacked
\nOutside a candy shop, \u201cbye baby\u201d
\nFor Michael Brown, \u201cI cant breathe\u201d the air was too thick for Eric Garner,<\/p>\n

The grappling hooks behind the gin mill
\nCould not even clasp the body
\nHe\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cBye baby,\u201d the police are probing tonight,
\nFor bodies of black children in the waters of suburbs
\nOutside, they won’t let me in,
\nA shiver in the tallgrass: Indian bluestem, Kentucky Bluegrass,
\nA marker rooted in justice against racism,
\nThe sign vandalized<\/p>\n

A white drunkard stares at the open casket,
\nThey won’t let me in.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

iv.<\/strong><\/p>\n

in cellars of haunted houses
\nno one talked about it<\/p>\n

the cool dark green moss
\nsubsumed the secrets<\/p>\n

the diamond-backed watersnake
\nwhips and dissolves a whisper of water<\/p>\n

walter scott was stopped at a traffic light
\nno one heard the pops<\/p>\n

the cellars of haunted houses
\nare like ancient cities of civilizations that crashed<\/p>\n

built on brutality in Saint Paul, in Baltimore,
\nin McKinney, Texas,<\/p>\n

in cellars of haunted houses,
\nwhispers are drowned out by clank and crush of the cotton gin<\/p>\n

like Eli Whitey\u2019s patent, or Fones McCarthy\u2019s invention
\nfallen on big heaps of black men\u2019s backs<\/p>\n

no one talked about it<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

v.<\/strong><\/p>\n

she recants
\nsheriff promises those things hunted down
\nnothing he ever did
\ncould justify the blood of Emmett Till<\/p>\n

only after nightfall, boys lie awake
\nwondering, wondering<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You don’t remember . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":3037,"template":"","categories":[9,49,119],"tags":[6,807,37,808,809,810],"class_list":["post-3036","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aquifer","category-literary-features","category-poetry","tag-aquifer-the-florida-review-online","tag-emmett-till","tag-hispanic-heritage-month","tag-jonathan-andrew-perez","tag-lynching","tag-the-body-riddled-with-bullets-a-five-part-pastoral"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Body Riddled with Bullets: A Five-Part Pastoral - The Florida Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/the-body-riddled-with-bullets-a-five-part-pastoral\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Body Riddled with Bullets: A Five-Part Pastoral - 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