by Bill Duvall
Jackie Robinson went deep
in the hole between first and second
snapping a dirt strafing scorcher
from the turf barehanded
and threw to first freezing
the Oriole runner halfway to the bag.
I was 9 this was 1946
this was the only time
my father took me anywhere
he was KKK. Montreal went on
to win the Little World Series
from Louisville; words spitooned
slurs of chaw t'baccy
from Kentucky dugout jaws.
Canadians carried Jackie
on their shoulders & chased him
down streets & thru alleys
out of love. The Kentucky dugout
moved to America & slew Acorn, voters
moved to the dugout channel, opened the bag
of XXX flour & found weevils chomping clumps
of Schwerner gobs of Cheney gulping down
Goodman & Liuzzo choking on
Bayard Rustin gagging finally on King & Jackson.
Harriet Tubman falls on top'a ol' ol' boll wevil
in one'a her spells. Rosa Parks does her best
iconoclastin' staying right where she is.
William Still James B. & Peter Still everlasting.
Bill Duvall is a Baltimore native living in Vass, North Carolina. He is a retired Federal employee and holds a BS in Economics and MFA-In-Writing (poetry) from Vermont College of Fine Arts. His poems have appeared in contemporaryamericanvoices, North Carolina Literary Review, Comrades, and other online and paper journals. He belongs to the North Carolina Poetry Society and the Dramatists Guild.
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