Alabama, 2004

William Fargason

in the hallway of my high school my friend slipped me
a burned CD of David Allan Coe between classes saying think you’ll like this I nodded or didn’t I don’t

remember either way in the parking lot of my high school John raised a Confederate flag in the bed of his Chevy
the tires edging out of the wheel well the truck lifted

eight inches brushguard gleaming like chrome prison bars
I walked to my own car to go home heard the throaty growl his exhaust clouding the air as he drove away

just fast enough for the flag to wave this was Pelham this was Alabama but even then I could feel
a crack forming across each hallway across every green locker

this was years before the Nathan Bedford Forrest monument the Confederate general would be dethroned
covered in pink paint his mouth agape as if

somehow surprised his horse on its back legs sword in the air gun aimed behind him forever pointing
to that backwards past that would always footnote

my state in its sins this was before THEY WERE RACISTS was spray painted in red on the Robert E. Lee monument in Centennial Park I didn’t even shake my head

when John’s truck pulled past me or at the jokes he told at our lunch table now i wish I could’ve gone back to those afternoons snuck out before the bell

doused that flag in kerosene before lighting a match
wish I could’ve watched John walk up to a bed full of ash but I wouldn’t stand up to anyone back then too worried

about fitting in so I nodded to John the sort of nod men give to say what they won’t say a nod layered
a nod as he passed the warm exhaust almost choking me