Oh Willie dear don’t kill me here
I’m unprepared to die
“Knoxville Girl,” Appalachian murder ballad
Son, I said, what have you done?
He came in late, my boy, his shirt front
and britches muddy and stained.
How come that blood on your shirt sleeve?
I put the light on to see his face,
our shadows stretched up the stairwell
wall, our silhouettes as slow as night.
He told me to go back to bed,
says, Mother, I’ve just got
one of those bad headaches
that makes my nose bleed. Says fetch
me some aspirin and a cold wash
rag. Something about the way
he smelled put me in mind
of that dark-eyed girl he’s been
seeing. One of those Happy Holler
girls works over at the Standard
Knitting Mills, had a little girl, not
a soul knows who its daddy was,
and when my boy started
going with that girl, seems
like a pall covered his face, his eyes
dull as the Tennessee River. Next
thing I knew, the sheriff beat
on the door and wanted in, says
there’s been a killing on the river
bank. I looked up the stairs
to my fair boy, Oh Willie
dear what have we done?
My son come tell it to me.