My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE | Page 81

By
COLLEEN
McELROY

BADLANDS
1.
the story goes soon as Perry Lee and Jackson
settled Anna Belle and her family
on a spit of a farm in Illinois they set out
to look for their sister Dora Emma
they followed the underground route
leading them due west and steered clear
of towns where faces held the pallor of hunger
that marked the southern states towns where
you move around and turn around and jump just so
while carpet baggers carried a gun in one pocket
and the law in the other ready to shoot or shackle
what they called runaway negras
the posters were everywhere
2.

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word came their ma’am was living with her folks
out there on the plains a map fitting Jackson’s
need to head for the badlands soon as he could
Jackson rode easy at night using stars to navigate
the way the old folks did when they escaped
Perry Lee took the reins of the buckboard brought along
to ease the travel for their ma’am and their baby sister
Dora Emma not old enough to gentle a horse at night
when the moon’s borrowed light tricked both horse and man
or by day when the prairie sun bleached the land to sand
and tumbleweed ten hands high spooked the horses
tilting the weight of the buckboard
until Jackson tied bags of loose dirt to opposite rails