A Prayer for Emmett Till

Rib cage, color monitor of soulful strut, DJ, the bells Of William Faulkner sitting underneath the Post at white Oxford, both suffering from peeling paint, a small breasted Madonna holding her cotton leaf around her sacred space, no room at the inn for Emmett Till, RN in rehab for stealing a man's mind when she curled her porpoise-like figure around the last temptation of,
 
I waited for you, a distant and dancing cousin of Radio City tap dance, we lay together on the bed where you were beaten by those men who took poor Emmett Till off in the night, before your mother bailed you out of a hot dog marriage to the catch of chorus fever,
 
Silly, the transgressions of fallen angels, beware of dancing girls and rednecks who come for the sweet innocents in the night, I have gone sober in plaid and pink coats of arms, with mold,
and heinous soap.
 
who wash away the blood of little Emmett Till,
 
silent the voices of the many, in a shameful South, carnival of chain-like adrenalin rush, a love note in red, coded so they high nimbus jelly belly middle class, overhead and moving north, Emmett Till, beaten into an open grave by the men who ate pimento cheese sandwiches, and beer,
 
while throwing little Emmett Till into that old noisy river,
 
down by the river,
drowning out the noises of a little boy,
while Jim Crow sat in the pews of every goddamed church,
 
in Mississippi,
 
Who speaks for little Emmett Till?
 
Preacher man, normal man, law man, elected man no, no, no, all of you hide behind your curtain sash,
 
why don't you make grateful noises, have your braces fallen from Mount Olympus, Hercules no,
polite man, yes,
perhaps,
 
eating spine coats and humility so that this afternoon rare visitation with a hybrid and early spring,
a Chicago funeral home,
and my mother,
 
receiving callers of Emmett's funeral dirge
of little boy head beaten flat,
tap dancers with now normal husbands,
 
no churchman asking,
 
"Why did Emmett Till have to die?"
 

Copyright, William "Wild Bill" Taylor, April, 2002