I OWE MY SOUL
Few secrets in a little town, kids
brooming sidewalks after school,
fat-tired Schwinn’s slung with bags
of county history we thought was news.
No one felt anonymous, not even
the lean Okie kids from Tuleville
who rode the bus with the rest of us
they hated. The older girls claimed
the long black seat and brayed
gospel songs as the bus filled-up –
but then someone behind me
would always start it to rocking:
erupting with Tennessee Ernie Ford’s
“Sixteen Tons.” Lyrics you could see
before they got off at the company store,
three dirt streets of clapboard shacks
with broke-down wrecks looking-out
so helplessly that we all sang along.