The old woman across the way
is whipping the boy again
and shouting to the neighborhood
her goodness and his wrongs.
Wildly he crashes through elephant ears,
pleads in dusty zinnias,
while she in spite of crippling fat
pursues and corners him.
She strikes and strikes the shrilly circling
boy till the stick breaks
in her hand. His tears are rainy weather
to woundlike memories:
My head gripped in bony vise
of knees, the writhing struggle
to wrench free, the blows, the fear
worse than blows that hateful
Words could bring, the face that I
no longer knew or loved . . .
Well, it is over now, it is over,
and the boy sobs in his room,
And the woman leans muttering against
a tree, exhausted, purged—
avenged in part for lifelong hidings
she has had to bear.
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Robert Hayden was my major professor at Fisk University and one of my all-time favorite teachers as you did not have to think as he tought as long as you could give a logical explanation. I very much admired him - in class he had an aversion to birds and when they would fly into our classroom window - he would get quite upset. We took our Creative Writing class at his house. I am glad he finally achieved the recognition he deserved.
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