Jack Ryan

Ode to Willie Louis by Jack Ryan

For Willie Louis, an African-American man who testified against Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam in their trial for the murder of Emmett Till.

the splintering, aching oak of the witness stand pierces his unbelted khaki pants.

he bears witness to a crime only punishable in the land untilled by whitney’s gin.

the stare of twelve white men burns his smooth temple, wishing to replace his cross with barbed wire, the cold marble floor with the tallahatchie.

The ebony hand of God points to the bald headed man across the stand of injustice.

a verdict rendered centuries before that gavel’s bang, when the white lion breached the fertile ground of a stolen land.

an acquittal known to all whose yard was laced with a white picket fence and whose houses were built by a dream deferred.

their stares speak a thousand words, not one of which is guilty.