To the Bramble and the Briar: Poems

The Beams

e Beams John Brown’s body jerked around a lot, and he was inside there trying to fight the indignity of his legs kicking up a storm of laughter in the solemn minds of soldiers standing at attention, and his neck broke eventually, lolling to and fro while his hips worked like a dancer until it slowed, and music on the streets of Charles Town struck up a sudden blast of brass and the streamers flew and the drunks smiled into their sleeves and John Wilkes Booth cried tears of joy for the death of tyrants, cheats, and traitors and said his prayer aloud to the bosom of the whore who had her hand down there for free, and the country rejoiced as the body was stilled by its own force falling to nothing and was laid in the coffin and buried right there where it remained lost for a short time before it was moved to New York and myth, though it was just a body, the beard slick with spit and mucus, the eyes spring loaded to open, it seemed, though the captain tried to close them for they were hard and wild to see—like two slender crimson laser beams. 1 ...