Three white Ole Miss students use guns to vandalize a memorial to lynching victim Emmett Till

They constitute their bodies while if they’ve fair bagged

Their earliest 10-point buck. One holds a shotgun,

Another squats beneath the shot-up sign,

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A third stands accompanied by an AR-15.

Three faces smiling, hoisting guns

In front of a bullet-ridden marker:

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Was removed from the river.

It is hunters’ hours.

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The sign’s jagged holes could slice

A finger. Those students are someone’s sons

Or brothers, not a a large amount of older than

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The young Black boy, his body beaten,

Tethered to a 75-pound cotton-gin fan

And thrown into the Tallahatchie.

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This is an elderly story, a Southern Gothic.

To deny this boy’s existence with every one other accompanied by then

Deny the marker that says he lived

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Breaks me every one time. The camera captures

The night’s black cover, the tall grasses,

The momentary flash

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Illuminating their shit-eating grins

And the firearm barrels’ glint—lifetimes

Of getting away accompanied by it.

#Living #Sorrow & Grieving #Social Commentaries #History & Politics #Race & Ethnicity