South and Past of Atlanta

A specter arises from ancient sheets, dusted,

with tar drenched day dreams of Georgia roads,

and twisted magnolia trees,

growing jagged tin flowers,

and look at the nightmares, 

quietly emerging,

and all that appears,

to haunt the lady of the house,

five generations and a lifetime ago,

for refusing to protect,

the secondary mistress of the plantation.

Instead,

she folded the silver-stained sheets,

and wrapped the little sin in them,

and when she turned to face the mother,

her eyes turned dark,

a reflection of the dark skin before her,

and the horror was complete.

A sickly mewling thing,

smothered in cotton, 

it killed them all,

one way or another,

and the mother, weak. 

Miss Anne would have told you,

it,

was,

not, 

hard,

at,

all. 

And her great-great-grandchild was puzzled,

as she searched in the house that survived Sherman's march,

when she opened the rosewood chest,

that was locked so tightly,

all the way from glory days,

to find a bundle of rags,

and as she picked it up,

with both hands, 

incautious,

small bones fell to the ground,

and she wondered how a mouse got in there,

when the skull dropped.

(She remained nameless)