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.