Last October My Brother Died, and: Maidy Grimes Lives Alone

Mary L. Parker—Poems Maidy Grimes Lives Alone My Willie's gone up the road Done gone up to Baltimore Leaving this girl to curl In the hollow of a cotton boll Knowing there's weevils there. Do my Willie die up north His misty ghost rising Like lapsing summer heat Cooling the streets of Baltimore Only the old yellow moon Sorrowing in the pines Knock on my door And say you gone, Willie Boy. Oh, Willie, don't tlie road Go down from Baltimore? Last October My Brother Died I, too, have been in a cornfield On a late autumn afternoon The stalks half green, half brown Not knowing if to go or stay Balanced on the edge of a furrow. A path is a familiar thing. It should go up or down Somewhere and back again. Corn rows cannot make a path Ends cannot twist together. Best lie down and rest Until paths come right again. 78 ...