USA

mother-jones123@msn.com

Red Sun Watermelon


Once upon a time, in the summer of 1963
A station wagon rolled across Mississippi.
A little girl in the back seat watched in wonder
As the top of a gigantic red ball
Appeared majestically over the horizon.
The red ball grew whole as they drove toward it
Hovering magically in the sky before her eyes.

The family stopped at a gas station.
The little blonde with long skinny legs
Looked for the bathroom.
A white wooden sign in the shape of an arrow
pointed the way.
Black emphatic letters read WHITES ONLY.
An old woman with skin the color of grapes trudged silently past her.

Maybe something inside her began to die a little then.
She stopped looking at grown-ups when they talked
She stared at the ground and listened to the sound their voices made.

A few months later, a President was murdered not far from that gas station.
Like all the other kids, she was sent home early from school
Only it was the ever of her 10th birthday
Her first pajama party was planned for that night.

Instead of celebrating, the little girls huddled together and cried.
What they cried for had no words.
They were waking up to the world they had been born into.
They wanted to go back to sleep and could not.

The little girls were sent home early from the party
And watched gravely with the adults, the black and white images engraved in their souls.
The horse-drawn carriage. The woman in black.
The little boy who lost his daddy.
The Eternal Flame. The Eternal Flame.
Then the strange apparition of the man in the Police station
Shooting the man who shot the President.

It was, we know now, a Coup d'Etat
A Coup d'Etat that no one speaks of
Except the insane.
The little girl grew into a woman now splitting open
Like a watermelon dropped in the field
Heavy with the memory of all this and more, and more, and more.

© Copyright 2001, JC Jones.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.