From the Unwritten Letters of Joseph Freeman

(March, 1841)

• What a herd of slaves Jackson brought in last month.
• No sooner had their strength returned
• after the long march to the farm from Lynchburg
• but they began to plot another run.
• We didn’t know they’d planned to leave
• until they were already gone a day.
• All manner of neighborhood men
• came around to tip Jackson’s whiskey
• and help him on the hunt, though
• all they brought back for their trouble
• were two bodies. One dead,
• one fighting off living. That boy
• I told you about, Ben with the slashed cheek?
• At the stony fork of the river
• Doc Jackson found his body, cut up,
• twisted as if it had fought long
• under water, a dead hand pointing
• in the direction his netted sister and the “damned
• lost lot of niggers” had run. I guess
• he was too obstinate even for the water
• to hold down easily. Jackson used Ben
• like a scarecrow, his shirt hooked on a pole,
• his body meant to warn us from the road.
• Lila’s still not certain that the girl will live.
• Until tomorrow, I am ever your Joe.

Camille T. Dungy is the author of the poetry collections Smith Blue; Suck on the Marrow; and What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison. She edited Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry, and co-edited the From the Fishouse poetry anthology. Her honors include an American Book Award, two Northern California Book Awards, a California Book Award silver medal, and a fellowship from the NEA. Dungy is a professor in the creative-writing department at San Francisco State University.