for Grandma Myrtle
I.
Midnight hovers over Georgia, white masters over dark shoulders.
Silence sleeps, but black hands and feet cannot. Cicadas hiss and chirp,
frogs mock field workers, mimicking misery with their groans.
Laughs carry off in the distance and echo like whips ricocheting in the wind. Feet bleed like sweet juice
gushing from that Georgia peach. The aroma of sweat and wildflowers hangs in the air—bitter.
Hands burn, brass knuckles beating backs, branches whipping legs, legs shaking, nerves jumping, backs buckling.
Backs ache like hands bloodied on cotton, ache like bodies bent over for sixteen, seventeen, eighteen hours. The sun rests, and he wishes for a cool breeze to kiss his face— cool as Georgia sweet tea.
II.
She serves tea, serves biscuits and gravy— all with a smile.
She smiles, cleans plates, cleans shoes, makes beds.
All day, washes windows, sweeps floors, dusts counters, beats rugs, remembering smacks across her face when she let the soup boil too long. She sets tables and wraps silverware like hands wrapped around her neck when she tells the master, No. She wishes
she was in the field under stars with her love. Instead, she’s stuck where the Victrola squeaks and drowns out the sound of screaming.
At least in the field she could get her hands on something to fight back with.
She wrings water from clothes and hangs them on the line, breathes deep and heavy like bay windows letting in the Georgia wind— lilac and honeysuckle heavy in the air.
III.
He looks up at the midnight sky hovering like white faces over
black bodies. He feels a breeze brush past his cheek and catches her scent. He grits his teeth, a moment to let that smell consume him until they are together again.