F. Marshall Davis, "Portrait of an Old Woman" (1927)
By F. Marshall Davis
Leather skin of a tom-tom
stretched loosely
over dried marrowless bones
then painted with a brown
the color of parched corn
old and bent
like the hands
of the town clock
at two minutes past six
eyes the color of
weatherbeaten brown calico
and with just that much brilliance
born working
will go out the same way
she had a son
he is now doing time
at Leavenworth
for bootlegging
her tomorrow
is like her today
yet she can sing
of a Saviour Jesus
who washed away
the sins of the world
and left her white as snow
of a rest that will come in
the Great Beyond.
What a tragedy it would be
if she were mistaken.
Published in The Crisis, April 1927