PEERING IN



Just a door that happens to be
           in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and it
     swings like any other, but this was the only             
                  one three young men walked 
  through on June 21, 1964, 
            picked up on a traffic charge, 
     
later released,
         then stopped again
                   on the road to
   Meridian, dragged into the
                 woods, beaten, shot, killed.  I know
    the road remembers,
             
              but for now I just peer
       inside and wonder,
             did  the office seem as neat
   and clean to them,
                          I mean that summer
        night, did their              
                     
                        terror abate, 
       the terror I
              feel even now, it's
so hot and close,
         still a small town with
                silent lips, it seemed to me,

like if you disappeared
              who would know,
     who would tell?



Nashoba County Sheriff's Office
County Courthouse
Philadelphia, Mississippi
2004
    

All written material © Bill Schechter, 2016
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