PEERING IN

Just a door that happens to be           in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and it     swings like any other, but this was the only                              one three young men walked  through on June 21, 1964,            picked up on a traffic charge,     later released,         then stopped again                   on the road to   Meridian, dragged into the                 woods, beaten, shot, killed.  I know    the road remembers,                          but for now I just peer       inside and wonder,             did  the office seem as neat   and clean to them,                          I mean that summer        night, did their                                                          terror abate,       the terror I              feel even now, it's so hot and close,         still a small town with                silent lips, it seemed to me, like if you disappeared              who would know,     who would tell?
Nashoba County Sheriff's Office County Courthouse Philadelphia, Mississippi
2004

All written material © Bill Schechter, 2016
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