Hannah Rogers

• Automatics
• I am afraid of City Darkness and Snakes
• I Miss the Forties on Sundays
• Flowers from Folsom Prison
• magnolia boy

Automatics

It all went to hell because of the automatics. If those boys hadn't brought them down out
of Atlanta, things would have turned out differently. We never liked the knives and guns
the boys have taken to carrying. They used to run booze in these parts, now they run
crack. It's always something. No one even minded a few fights so long as they kept them
on Sycamore Street where no one lives or in the old Piggly Wiggly parking lot. But it
didn't stay that way.

There isn't any work but suddenly all the boys had money, and their new friends from
Atlanta in their slick suits were coming down nearly every weekend. And they had
money, lots of money. Of course, we wanted to be with them and not just because there
is no telling what one of their babies is worth in alimony checks, probably its weight in
gold. It was also because they were so smooth. They said they were from Chicago, and
we knew it was true because they glided everywhere. Our brothers always expected
uneven ground as if the world were a field. Even when they walked down the aisle of Bill's
Dollar Store, they swaggered, expecting to need the extra balance. In Chicago there must
not be any fields because these boys could glide around in their slick shoes as if they
were dancing and still get around the stuff in the aisles.

But it wasn't just the way they moved that affected us or their clothes because our boys
could dress like that too now, and Fiddle Murphy even bought a big car. It was the way
they talked. They said they liked to hear us talk, but we loved to hear them. True enough,
they talked to each other at such a clip we could never keep up, but when they talked to
us it was slow and deliberate. It was clear to us that it took effort, and we always liked
effort.

It was bound to happen but we didn't think it would happen to a girl like Lottie. There
was never any competition among them because there were plenty of us. But Henry had
had his eye out for her since they were eight or something, so when an Atlanta boy in a
yellow hat started calling on her, he got kinda excited. But we knew she wouldn't change
her mind. This Atlanta boy was from Atlanta, and she was a girl who lived here. Her
folks were part of the landscape, she was part of the place. There wasn't any way she
was going to run off to Atlanta with any boy in a big yellow hat. Besides, Henry was
perfect for her. He lived right up the road, had money now that he was going to Atlanta a
lot, and he was exactly three and a half inches taller than her when she wore heels and
put her hair up. He was the kind of boy who could compensate for things. We liked the
way he smiled at her. The Atlanta boy smiled too, and it made Henry nervous. He said, "I
don't like the cocky way that boy smiles at her."

We were there when they ran into each other. It was at the Piggly Wiggly parking lot. If
talking means you started it, everyone would have to say it was Henry. But some people
maintained that he was provoked. Henry said, "You been coming to see my girl," and the
boy in the yellow hat said "Sure nuff," in a way that contradicted him liking the way we
talk. The other boys from Atlanta laughed. If they hadn't laughed I don't think Henry
would have let Bud off the back of the truck. But they did, and city boys are scared of
big dogs so they didn't even try to stop Bud when it became clear that he was going to
pee on the Atlanta boy's car wheel. Now Henry couldn't have known Bud was going to
do that, but that didn't seem to matter to the Atlanta boy. Henry whistled to Bud,
slammed the tailgate, and drove off with his little brother back to his Grandma's trailer.

It was about a half hour later, and we had gone to Ripville to swim, when the Atlanta boy
and his friends decided that what Bud did wasn't going to fly. Q Ann saw it out the trailer
window, but she's a kid so the grown ups, especially white grown ups, won't hear a word
of her talking. She says that the boy in the yellow hat opened up his trunk, and he and his
buddies loaded up some big guns. Not like the guns for killing squirrels, guns like they
have on TV, automatics. Then they shot 142 holes in the side of Henry's Grandmother's
trailer where she raised him and his brother and their six cousins. When they were
through, they put those guns back in the trunk and drove off down County Road 17.

So Henry got up and his little brother put on his hunter green jacket, and they got in the
truck. Henry made Bud stay. He didn't like all those gun shots, wouldn't have made much
of a deer dog. Shane caught up with the boy in the yellow hat just over the Chambers
county line. The man pulled over just to show Henry that he could do anything, like go
with his girl or shoot up his Grandma's trailer or pull over at the county line when he could
have kept going on back to Atlanta, so Henry shot him in the head. Henry and his brother
threw the yellow hat over into Pigeon Roast Creek, so we aren't gonna go swimming
there anymore.

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I am afraid of City Darkness and Snakes

So I swish through the tall grass
Because I have a deal with the clouds,
They watch me and the weeds
And see in between everything.

I walk in fake night,
Not the deep darkness the wood makes in her womb,
Gray night only men can manufacture.

When there are jellyfish on land
I turn them over with sticks.
They are mine in my element,
Daring me to wade into theirs.

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I Miss the Forties on Sundays

Frank Sinatra is singing The Way You Look Tonight in honor of my hat.
Dick Tracy's girl would have tipped off her heels
To order this hat out of the Sears and Roebuck catalog.

Aunt Lynda took me to Miss Claudine's, and
We dug through her tattered hat trunks.
Some were her mama's when pigs bought sugar and hats,
Hers were mostly from the Second War.

It is with great effort that my hat chooses a Sunday dress.
It is difficult to find worthy regalia to show off her wide brim
Without bragging about her color.
Being beautiful and modest has its trials.

People stare at my hat during Chapel,
And I am glad to provide a distraction when the preacher drags on.
I pretend they are admiring my hat,
Trying to recall if their Aunt Mays might have on tucked up in the attic.
But really I know they are jealous of my hat,
Which would be fine if it were Saturday night,
But people ought not think such things on Sundays.

Sometimes my hat hums tunes from her childhood home, she sniffles
Trying to smell honeysuckle or even dairy barns in Alabama.
But she likes being out and about.
God willing she'll keep her shape till eighty,
I hope I look that good when I'm fifty-five.

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Flowers from Folsom Prison

Edward's letters came on Tuesdays. They were never short, though there was Never
enough paper at Folsom Prison. He worked in the greenhouse four days a week. He
watered the marigolds. At Christmas, he sent her a poinsettia he cut out of a magazine.
Ruth hung it on the refrigerator. She hung it on the side, partly because that way she
could see it when she did the dishes and partly so her niece wouldn't give her grief about
it. She had told her niece how they wouldn't let him have the fruit basket she sent. They
said she could send jogging pants and crackers. Apparently, sweat pants and nabs were
the only kind of Christmas people had in prison. Her niece said that there's a reason we
put people in prison, and it is not so you can send them fruit baskets. But Ruth liked
being written to on Tuesdays, just listen to the sweet way he wrote. He was forty now,
and they had penned him up at twenty-six. He was a changed man. He told her so. He
had found the Lord. He didn't talk about getting out much. Ruth wanted him to be
content. Her niece said she hoped he stayed locked up forever.

The parol hearing announcement was in the paper. Ruth bought a new pair of hose at the
beginning of the week. From the back of the court room she could see the back of his
head. She could not see his face, so she did not know how he was feeling. She looked at
the shiny spot on the judge's head, hoping it would reflect Edward's expression. It didn't.
The dark-haired on the other side of the aisle from Edward stood up. She had on shiny
heels, but she had worn her hose before. She read a prepared statement. She told about
how he came up the steps and the water he asked for. Ruth wished he would turn
around. She told about the supper on the stove and her six-year-old asleep down the
hall. Ruth wished she could see Edward's face. She told about the field and what
happened. Ruth needed to see his eyes. She told how he had driven her back to a gas
station and given her two dimes for the call. Not every man would have done that. She
sat down.

Edward's lawyer was gray. His suit was a shade of smoke just darker than his hands. He
told about how Edward had taken all the courses he could and worked in the
greenhouse. He told about good behavior reports from guards. Ruth wished he would tell
about how Edward went to church and was a changed man. The woman in heels shook
her head and cried. The judge denied parol. Edward went back through the door on the
right. Ruth wished she had gotten there earlier. Then she could have seen him come in,
seen his face. When she wrote that week she mentioned coming to his hearing. He did
not write about the hearing but he did send her a clipping of some purple pansies.

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magnolia boy

so he sang the magnolia song
humming crescendoed to tree hymns
of fields soaked in cotton
and birds finding their way home.

this would have been acceptable in Reeltown, Alabama,
but next-door Miss Judy had him
pulled down from his perch,
called the cops to get him out of her caladiums.


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