Renée Owen

Shades of Night

rags
in the broken window
first moonless night

Sound of a babe cryin' sets my breasts to leakin'. Mill fires light up the black sky. With cotton fetchin' eight cents a bushel, one of us goin' be skinned alive.

fireflies
master calls for her
past midnight

They done took my little one. Now they on the search for my man. No sound out in the swamp but dem dogs. If he so much as breathes, dey find him.

property
only the negro man
knows