BETWEEN THE WORLD
19
glowed, the whore smeared the lipstick red upon her lips,
And a thousand faces swirled around me, clamoring that my life
be burned ...
And then they had me, stripped me, battering my teeth into my
throat till I swallowed my own blood.
My voice was drowned in the roar of their voices, and my black
wet body slipped and rolled in their hands as they bound
me to the sapling.
And my skin clung to the bubbling hot tar, falling from me in
limp patches.
And the down and quills of the white feathers sank into my raw
flesh, and I moaned in my agony.
Then my blood was cooled mercifully, cooled by a baptism of
gasoline.
And in a blaze of red I leaped to the sky as pa.in rose like
water, boiling my limbs.
Panting, begging I clutched child-like, clutched to the hot
sides of death.
Now I am dry bones and my face a stony skull staring in yellow
surprise at the sun ...
RICHARD WRIGHT
