Hide and Go Seek
by Alan Gann


M I crooked letter crooked letter I

One Mississippi tribe
band of Choctaw

Two Mississippi myths
riverboat gamblers calling aces and eights
smiling slaves wishing they were
back in Dixie away away

Three Mississippi civil rights workers
one black, two white
arrested in June 1964
buried in a nearby dam

crooked letter crooked letter I

Four Mississippi
one too many
between lit fuse and firecracker tossed

Five Mississippi
deep inhales and exhales
before I talk back to Mama

Six Mississippi tourist traps
The Gen. Steven D. Lee Education Museum
Vicksburg Battlefield
Soldier’s Rest at Cedar Hill
Natchez Plantation Tour
Fort Massachusetts on the Gulf
Cannons at Corinth

humpback humpback I

Seven Mississippi rests stops
between Alabama and Louisiana
where we never stopped
cause Mama said
we didn’t need to go that bad

Eight Mississippi cousins
at the family reunion and learning
some great-grandparents owned others

Nine Mississippi musicians
Robert Johnson Howl’n Wolf John Hurt
Leontyne Price Tammy Wynette Conway Twitty
Muddy Waters Bo Diddly and some guy named Elvis

Ten Mississippi
ready or not






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