Those who Hang

Don’t drown

Don’t plant mistakes

In soft ground.

In Mississippi there be

Ghosts in the soil

The breeze on my back

Plantation, a woman

Asks, but what the cost

To the owner be?

If you’ve walked

The stones, you know

Of what they speak

Whittling words

Dredged from a crick –

Born, then black.

Those who Drown

Don’t hang –

Lo, for they have fields

To sow, blood to reap.

Laine Derr holds an MFA from Northern Arizona University and has published interviews with Carl Phillips, Ross Gay, Ted Kooser, and Robert Pinsky. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming from Chapter House, ZYZZYVA, Portland Review, Oxford Magazine, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere.

Oluniyi is the nom de guerre (love being the ultimate revolutionary act) of a writer who prefers to work in obscurity.