Righteous Tennessee, 1925
unwavering fundamentalism
In Righteous, Tennessee, the courthouse wears
a wreath of red ribbons woven in New England
by rock-walled wives who rarely leave the barn.
In the central square, the gazebo wears
a New York Yankees cap long faded gray,
its short brim a shadow where white children,
black children, orangutan and gibbon
children swing on pendulums, small fingers
slim as truth, narrower than Bible spines.
In the barber shops, the journalists shade
their beards with pencil lead, their jungle breath
broadcast live across a vine of static sighs.
In Righteous, Tennessee, the heat runs wet,
slow as a barge on the bent Mississippi,
briny as the brow of a plantation preacher.
At dusk, when the sun and the moon exchange
their robes, the screaming skies of bats arise
to feed on bugs and history….
When the clock tower chimes, its two hands raised
As one to God, all the professors privately weep—
right here, downtown, in Righteous, Tennessee.
The Emancipator, 2008
