Grandmother Ruth—Last Day of School

From Greenwood Burning: Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1921

The worst race riot in the history of the United States occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921 when Greenwood, the prosperous black district of the city, was burned to the ground by a white mob. 

It’s still an hour before first bell on the final day of school, 
and the ceiling fan is stirring a little breeze 

so papers on Mr. O’Malley’s desk rise and walk 
down the aisle, as if they, too, had someplace better to be.

I’m daydreaming of dancing with Jimmy Dolan when I hear something 
rolling down Cincinnati Avenue—the tearing sound of old metal 

wheels and an axle that needs grease, and even in 1921, 
when the trolley carries me home each evening along downtown streets 

paved for fleets of Ford Roadsters, the sound of horses’ hooves 
is not unfamiliar, though part of a world we’ve all outgrown.

Now, I can just make them out, Percherons, pounding steel shoes 
into asphalt that by midday will be slicked with tar, and pulling 

an old buckboard wagon bearing too much weight on its springs.  
So I’m wondering what’s in back?  What’s stacked under the heavy tarpaulin?  

Maybe cordwood for the big boiler in the school basement.
On the first of June, there’s still a chill in the air 

when the sun is still waiting, and I’ve got the school to myself.  
and because I’m surrounded by old poets stuck to the walls, 

I glance back at Wordsworth and Shelley peering over my shoulder, 
and Byron who dance the Texas Tommy all night long.  

And now the wagon’s almost underneath the window,
and a little light is just creeping over the Edison Auto Motel, 

when I notice something sticking out from under the canvas—
feet, shoeless, lots of feet, some turned up and others down. 

Manikins for the windows at Vandevers?  But these are black. 
And oh lord, now I smell smoke and wonder if the school is burning, 

and from this second-floor window, I can see a dark cloud rising 
from the far side of the railroad tracks—Little Africa, 

in the first fingers of gathering light.  And later in class, I smell ash 
and kerosene on Mr. O’Malley’s hands as he smooths the semester final 

on my desk. Now, all the students are turning to stare out the window 
as sunlight reveals the death of the Dreamland Ballroom 

and a thousand homes rendered in flame.  And I remember the feet 
in the wagon passing Central High and turning at McNulty Field, 

where Babe Ruth clubbed a baseball so far over the right-field wall 
it rolled an extra hundred yards to settle by a gravestone 

in Oaklawn Cemetery.  And now I know where that wagon was bound, 
and by tomorrow no one’s ever going to speak of Greenwood again. 

“Grandmother Ruth—Last Day of School” originally appeared in Nimrod International Journal’s Fall/Winter 2016 issue, Awards 38. Nimrod is The University of Tulsa’s literary magazine. For more information and to purchase issues, visit utulsa.edu/nimrod.

Markham Johnson won Nimrod’s Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry in 2016. His poems have appeared widely in such magazines as Nimrod, This Land, and Nine Mile, and his book "Collecting the Light" was published by the University Press of Florida.  He teaches at Holland Hall School.