Thataway
And the migrants kept coming.
—JACOB LAWRENCE
Was walking. Was
walking & then waiting
for a train, the 12:40
to take us thataway.
(I got there early.)
Wasn’t a train
exactly but a chariot
or the Crescent Limited come
to carry me some
home I didn’t yet
know. There were those
of us not ready till good
Jim swung from a tree
& the white folks crowded
the souvenir photo’s frame—
let his body black-
en, the extremities
shorn—not shed,
but skimmed off
so close it can be shaving
almost. An ear
in a pocket, on a shelf,
a warning where a book
could go. So
I got there early.
See now, it was morning—
a cold snap, first frost
which comes even
here & kills the worms
out the deer. You can
hunt him then
but we never did want,
after, no trophy
crowned down
from a wall, watching—
just a meal, what
we might make last
till spring. There are ways
of keeping a thing.
Then there are ways
of leaving, & also
the one way. That
we didn’t want.
I got there early.
Luggage less sturdy
(cardboard, striped, black)
than my hat. Shoebox
of what I shan’t say
lunch on my lap.
The noise the rails made
even before the train.
A giant stomach growling.
A bowed belly. I did
not pray. I got there
early. It was not
no wish, but a way.