Sunflower County Triptych

Three poems by James Dickson

Editor’s note: Line spacing becomes distorted on a mobile device, so I recommend reading these poems on a desktop computer. You can read Jamie Dickson’s Rooted Questionnaire here.

Vandalized Emmett Till historical marker | Photo by Robert Rausch for the New York Times

I. Tallahatchie Flux

Since Heraclitus tells us we can’t 
step into the same river twice, 
can I bathe in the Tallahatchie 
and come out clean?  This is not 

the same mud that clung to young
Emmett Till, the same water that 
bloated his body, that drug his
blood into itself.  What muddies

the water today if not the bloodstain?
Frat boys from Ole Miss recently 
pinged the heavy iron historical 
marker with their hunting rifles, 

denting and bulging it into a
contortion recognizable only 
as destruction.  They posed 
for pictures, kneeling beside

it like a felled deer, like another 
trophy to grin over.  These were
not the same hands that beat
Emmett, bound him, threw him

into the soft current that changed
the smiling child into corpse, the river 
no longer river, but ligature, blunt force
weapon, generational trauma. 
 
The river now is not the same river, 
but the current has gone unchanged.