Sorority Meeting

Myrlie Evers speaks to Thelma de la Beckwith
My faith urges me to love you.
My stomach begs me to not.
All I know is that day
made us sisters, somehow. After long
nervous nights and trials on end
we are bound together
in this unholy sorority of misery.
I think about you every time I run
my hands across the echoes
in the hollows of my sheets.
They seem loudest just before I wake.
I open my eyes every morning
half expecting Medgar to be there,
then I think about you
and your eyes always snatch me back.
Your eyes won’t let me forget.
We are sorority sisters now
with a gut wrenching country ballad
for a sweetheart song, tired funeral
and courtroom clothes for colors
and secrets we will take to our graves.
I was forced to sleep night after night
after night with a ghost.
You chose to sleep with a killer.
We both pledged our love,
crossed our hearts and swallowed oaths
before being initiated with a bullet.

Frank X Walker
“Sorority Meeting” is from No More Fear: The Rebirth of Medgar Evers.