print previewback WILLIAM WOOLFITT
1912: Hush Harbor
for Robert Johnson
Bluefield, West Virginia
When the sheriff beats him, insisting
he’s guilty, he harmed
a woman this morning—
When she cannot identify, falters,
when the deputy offers him coffee,
a smoke, and leads him to a bare room—
When the deputy says strip, makes him
remove—
When the deputy says put these on,
soiled overalls he’s never seen, a loose
shirt, a bandanna, not his, none of it,
but now he roughly fits her description,
now lie overthrows truth, now she cries
it’s him—
When the mob howls
on Federal Street—
Sometimes, a man might struggle.
Or lay his body down. Or make
a hush harbor. Or cross the river
and rise to the cliff tops, secret place
under the electric billboards, flashing
letters twenty feet high, now gold,
now green, hideaway where one night
he camped, dreaming the last things
he saw, blue pines
and words made of light— 
1912: Hush Harbor