From the Fishouse

Myrlie Evers speaks to Thelma de la Beckwith

My faith urges me to love you.
My stomach begs me to not.
All I know is that day

made us sisters, somehow. After long
nervous nights and trials on end
we are bound together

in this unholy sorority of misery.
I think about you every time I run
my hands across the echoes

in the hollows of my sheets.
They seem loudest just before I wake.
I open my eyes every morning

half expecting Medgar to be there,
then I think about you
and your eyes always snatch me back.

Your eyes won’t let me forget.
We are sorority sisters now
with a gut wrenching country ballad

for a sweetheart song, tired funeral
and courtroom clothes for colors
and secrets we will take to our graves.

I was forced to sleep night after night
after night with a ghost.
You chose to sleep with a killer.

We both pledged our love,
crossed our hearts and swallowed oaths
before being initiated with a bullet.