Shelby Stephenson- A Poem

THE MOCCASINS OF 1952

At least I called them moccasins − water

Moccasins – I’d go down into the pit –

Under the gradin-room – hole – its ladder

Shackly, rickety, shaky – me, too − it

Was where we “ordered” tobacco – loiter?

No way for a boy fourteen and unfit

To assimilate the snakes on tier-poles

Which held cured tobacco Mama would spray.

The brittle leaves came in order; their souls

Would appear, right before my eyes; I’d pray

In dim dark one-bulb-dom down there to bold

Heavens not to lay my hand on the cold

Back of any crooked, muscularly flesh,

My heart bumping for the light above – yes!

Short bio:  Shelby Stephenson's The Hunger of Freedom (2014) is available from Red Dashboard at www.reddashboard.com