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THIS IS THE SOUTH

Diane Payne



While I was interviewing for a job,
and finally on my own, wandering

around town, away from the search committee,
I talked with locals, and discovered

this was a dry town, a town with a church
on every corner, and that the races didn’t mix.

One color goes to one church.
Different races don’t socialize.

When I asked why, I was simply told:
“Ma’am, this is the South.”

After moving here, to this South,
a man looked at my daughter,

then to me he said, “I hate how these
niggers are dating our girls. I don’t

believe in mixing races. It ain’t right.”
My daughter wasn’t sure what he was saying,

but knew how it felt, and tomorrow school
begins, and I remember how a black woman

told me my daughter wouldn’t be accepted
by either race because people don’t mix,

and I’m sitting here worrying what she’ll tell me
about her first day of school, hoping children

know a different South, and things will change.

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