Sammy Lou of Rue
sent to his reward
the exact creature who
murdered her husband,
using a cultivator’s hoe
with verve and skill;
and laughed fit to kill
in disbelief
at the angry, militant
pictures of herself
the Sonneteers quickly drew:
not any of them people that
she knew.
A backwoods woman
her house was papered with
funeral home calendars and
faces appropriate for a Mississippi
Sunday School. She raised a George,
a Martha, a Jackie and a Kennedy. Also
a John Wesley Junior.
“Always respect the word of God,”
she said on her way to she didn’t
know where, except it would be by
electric chair, and she continued
“Don’t yall forgit to water
my purple petunias.”