Addressed as @3Mister;@1 neither white nor red Nor tan, but more a shade of murky brown On Saturdays he drove an ox to town And slept upon a scanty fodder bed Behind his wagon near the cotton shed, While, sharing it, a lanky dog lay down And met the loafer's grin, the banker's frown, The gape of wide-eyed boys who thought him dead. So lazy, people said, he would not move A crippled hog that died beneath his floor; And when the hinges rusted through the groove He never tried to mend the sagging door. But he was forked lightning on the trigger That day the man from Hartsville called him @3Nigger@1. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FOR OUR BETTER GRACES by JAMES GALVIN A PARADOX by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON THE RETURN (2) by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON CITIES OF THE PLAIN by EDGAR LEE MASTERS DOMESDAY BOOK: LOVERIDGE CHASE by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: EPILOGUE by EDGAR LEE MASTERS THE DIORAMA PAINTER AT THE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY by KAREN SWENSON |