Springfield

where his cousin lived she was just his age they are back to back in a
studio portrait white bow in her hair circa 1909

where in 1908 a black was accused of killing another white another black of
raping a white

where the Lincoln home the Lincoln tomb the Lincoln depot the
Lincoln pew are tourist attractions monuments to the martyred
Illinois man who freed the slaves

where in 1908 a mob finding the prisoners gone burned the trans-
porting car destroyed 24 black businesses 40 black homes killed
2 successful blacks and also accidentally 4 whites

where he would later take his wife and child to visit the cousin the
Lincoln home the Lincoln tomb

where in 1908 events occurred that led a 1909 Cairo paper to say
its citizens were not moved by race prejudice, nor did they permit themselves
to be led into wanton destruction of property, or the taking of innocent lives,
as in Springfield


lynch

not as in pin, the kind that keeps the wheels
turning, and not the strip of land that marks
the border between two fields. unrelated
to link, as in chain, or by extension whatever
connects one part to another, and therefore
not a measure of chain, which in any
case is less than the span of a hand hold-
ing the reins, the rope, the hoe, or taking
something like justice into itself, as when
a captain turned judge and gave it his name.
that was before it lost its balance and crossed
the border, the massed body of undoers
claiming connection, relation, an intimate
right to the prized parts, to the body undone.

 
 

There were trees on those streets that were named
for trees: Sycamore, Cedar, Poplar, Pine,
Elm, where the woman’s body was found,
where the man’s body was taken and burned—

There must have been trees, there were trees
on Seventh Street, in front of the house that stands
in the picture behind the carriage that holds
the boy’s mother, the boy’s cousin, the boy—

And of course there were trees on Washington
Avenue, wide boulevard lined with exotic
ginkgoes, stately magnolias, there were trees
on that street that are still on that street,

trees that shaded the fenced-in yards of the large
Victorian houses, the mansion built by the man
who sold flour to Grant for the Union troops,
trees that were known to the crowd that saw

the victim hanged, though not on a tree, this
was not the country, they used a steel arch
with electric lights, and later a lamppost, this
was a modern event, the trees were not involved.

From Blue Front. Copyright 2006 by Martha Collins. All rights reserved.