Ballad of bertie county.

ballad of bertie county

   i.

   it was our hope to get there long before
   dark, but this part of carolina had been
   dark for two hundred years or more:
   dim-lit by white flames of cotton on thin

   brown stalks, we were answering a call,
   braving klan country to bring black folks
   city words with rural roots, we were all
   smiles with rough edges, telling bitter jokes.

   ii.

   sistah's house must be pretty big, we
   joked, half-expecting to be bedded down
   on cots and couches after eating all the
   collard greens we could, the last town,

   as sleepy as we were, some twenty, thirty
   miles behind us now. we were gunning
   our mouths, didn't hear the whispers we
   should have heard, time's savage cunning.

   iii.

   around us, the trees silhouetted, blackened,
   and disappeared into vast carolina night.
   we chased our headlights, our pace slackened
   when we spotted red-brick columns and white

   picket fence, a gravel driveway led through
   the columns toward a noose of yellow light
   above a shuttered door. ancient pines grew
   on either side, rising thickly, quickly out of sight.

   iv.

   not knowing what we'd gotten into, we
   got out of the car. the land seemed to sigh,
   a cricketless silence, we still didn't foresee
   the plump white woman who greeted us. hi,

   you must be ... come in. welcome. farewell,
   welfare, we thought, and crossed the threshhold.
   inside, one glance told us the deal. hell
   it really was a big house. memories in the flesh.

   v.

   no sign of mammy anywhere. no "wooly heads,"
   no "pickaninnies," no ginning boy-men, in any
   pictures, on any knick-knack shelves. our beds
   in innocent, menacing rooms. how many, how many

   slaved here? echoes of injuries rushing down
   the spiral staircase at us, seeping from the wood
   floor like sweat. none of us ever meant to drown
   first-hand in such a flood. fate got us good.

   vi.

   burgundy candles burned, bleeding onto
   the mahogany table. portraits of the mistress
   and master, in silk and suit, hung like two
   crimes on the opposite wall. our distress

   crawled our skin like lice, as our hostess's aunt
   and mother fished out story after story
   from their wine glasses, dripping their debutante
   drawls all over us, draping us in old glory.

   vii.

   we were never alone together, till she left
   us for the night in our three unholy
   rooms, gathering in one, we mourned the theft
   of our choice, our right to claim, solely

   for the sake of our historied hearts, i NEVER.
   one of us drew a vial of oil from a pocket,
   anointed our heads, hands, feet. evil's clever.
   touch your windows and your door. and lock it.

   viii.

   there were forty-seven blacks enslaved here,
   she'd told us. i sat up with all the lights
   on till my eyelids dropped like tears. fear
   dragged me through sleep, despite our rites.

   i dreamed of forty-seven fiddles shrieking
   dixie, forty-seven bales of cotton, forty-seven
   hounds a-howling, forty-seven planters leaking
   pus between brown thighs, and not one heaven.

   ix.

   morning. november's anemic sunlight swooned
   across the yard and, beyond, the desolate field.
   i sought sights to prove we weren't marooned
   in 1850, 1940. watched an elder wearily wield

   a rake, inherited work he'd spent a lifetime
   doing, his payment a pittance, little more than
   slave wages. historical preservation: pastime
   for mother and aunt, livelihood for this man.

   x.

   downstairs, in the kitchen, we sipped coffee,
   waited on scrambled eggs. through a second
   door, a room we hadn't seen last night, off we
   went, drawing near the portrait that beckoned

   us. who's that? we asked. sis harriet, they
   called her. harriet gatling. she was cook here, after
   slavery. so. stand here, said miss lady one day.
   i want to paint you, when you're not busy. (laughter.)

   xi.

   we breakfasted, packed, followed them
   to the center to read our poems. exercise
   equipment had been pushed to the gym
   walls. the only other place nearby of enough size

   for such a program is hope plantation, our hostess told
   us. counting our blessings and our meager
   but warm black audience, we let our words unfold
   a map of farms and cities, migrations of the eager.

   xii.

   it was our hope to recover a newer world
   before dark, but we had to drive across
   centuries to get home. our directions wiled,
   but our wills prevailed. we bore our mutual loss

   in anything but silence, till we saw rocky mount
   twinkling along the highway, a tight necklace
   of lights. we swore to log this passage, to account
   for this double-crossing, to etch an inerasable trace.

for lenard and teresa

Evie Shockley's poems appear in her chapbook The Gorgon Goddess (Carolina Wren P, 2001), and in journals and anthologies including Brilliant Comers, Crab Orchard Review, HOW2, nocturnes (re)view, and Poetry Daily. A Cave Canem fellow ('97-99) and recipient of a residency at the Hedgebrook retreat for women writers, Shockley is Assistant Professor of English at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.