Postcards at the Museum
- Postcards at the Museum
The murderers had no fear of identification. SometimesThe murderers were police. Vendors sold pop and sandwiches.Sometimes, as prelude, a man was slashed, charred, or severed.After the neck snapped, after the body's pendular swayingFinally stopped, the mob of onlookers posed for the camera.The youngest, age four, clad in a plaid summer frock,Waited in front with other girls, just feet from the corpse.One lynching postcard, 1916, signed "Your son Joe,"Offers "This is the barbecue we had last night." JottedWith brown ink, a cross shows where Joe stood in the crowd. [End Page 33]
Michele Wolf is the author of the books Immersion and Conversations During Sleep, winner of the Anhinga Prize for Poetry, and the chapbook The Keeper of Light. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, The Southern Review, The North American Review, The Hudson Review, and many other journals and anthologies, as well as on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and Poets.org. Raised in Florida, she now lives in Maryland, where she is a contributing editor for Poet Lore and teaches at The Writer's Center in Bethesda. Her website is michelewolf.com.
