A Bronzeville Mother Loiters In Mississippi. Meanwhile, A Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon Poem Rhyme Scheme

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From the first it had been like a	A
Ballad It had the beat inevitable It had the blood	B
A wildness cut up and tied in little bunches	C
Like the four line stanzas of the ballads she had never quite	D
understood the ballads they had set her to in school	E
	-
	-
Herself the milk white maid the maid mild	F
Of the ballad Pursued	G
By the Dark Villain Rescued by the Fine Prince	H
The Happiness Ever After	I
That was worth anything	J
It was good to be a maid mild	F
That made the breath go fast	K
	-
	-
Her bacon burned She	L
Hastened to hide it in the step on can and	M
Drew more strips from the meat case The eggs and sour milk biscuits	N
Did well She set out a jar	O
Of her new quince preserve	P
	-
	-
But there was something about the matter of the Dark Villain	Q
He should have been older perhaps	R
The hacking down of a villain was more fun to think about	S
When his menace possessed undisputed breath undisputed height	D
And best of all when history was cluttered	T
With the bones of many eaten knights and princesses	U
	-
	-
The fun was disturbed then all but nullified	V
When the Dark Villain was a blackish child	F
Of Fourteen with eyes still too young to be dirty	L
And a mouth too young to have lost every reminder	I
Of its infant softness	W
	-
	-
That boy must have been surprised For	X
These were grown ups Grown ups were supposed to be wise	Y
And the Fine Prince and that other so tall so broad so	Z
Grown Perhaps the boy had never guessed	A2
That the trouble with grown ups was that under the magnificent shell of adulthood just under	I
Waited the baby full of tantrums	B2
It occurred to her that there may have been something	J
Ridiculous to the picture of the Fine Prince	H
Rushing rich with the breadth and height and	M
Mature solidness whose lack in the Dark Villain was impressing her	I
Confronting her more and more as this first day after the trial	C2
And acquittal wore on rushing	J
With his heavy companion to hack down unhorsed	D2
That little foe So much had happened she could not remember now what that foe had done	Q
Against her or if anything had been done	Q
The breaks were everywhere That she could think	E2
Of no thread capable of the necessary	L
Sew work	F2
	-
	-
She made the babies sit in their places at the table	C2
Then before calling HIM she hurried	G2
To the mirror with her comb and lipstick It was necessary	L
To be more beautiful than ever	I
The beautiful wife	H2
For sometimes she fancied he looked at her as though	Z
Measuring her As if he considered Had she been worth it	I2
Had she been worth the blood the cramped cries the little stirring bravado The gradual dulling of those Negro eyes	Y
The sudden overwhelming little boyness in that barn	J2
Whatever she might feel or half feel the lipstick necessity was something apart HE must never conclude	G
That she had not been worth it	I2
	-
	-
HE sat down the Fine Prince and	M
Began buttering a biscuit HE looked at HIS hands	K2
More papers were in from the North HE mumbled More maddening headlines	L2
With their pepper words bestiality and barbarism and	M
Shocking	J
The half sneers HE had mastered for the trial worked across	M2
HIS sweet and pretty face	N2
	-
	-
What HE'd like to do HE explained was kill them all	O2
The time lost The unwanted fame	P2
Still it had been fun to show those intruders	Q2
A thing or two To show that snappy eyed mother	I
That sassy Northern brown black	R2
	-
	-
Nothing could stop Mississippi	L
HE knew that Big fella	A
Knew that	S2
And what was so good Mississippi knew that	S2
They could send in their petitions and scar	O
Their newspapers with bleeding headlines Their governors	Q2
Could appeal to Washington	Q
	-
	-
What I want the older baby said is 'lasses on my jam	T2
Whereupon the younger baby	L
Picked up the molasses pitcher and threw	U2
The molasses in his brother's face Instantly	L
The Fine Prince leaned across the table and slapped	V2
The small and smiling criminal	C2
She did not speak When the HAND	W2
Came down and away and she could look at her child	F
At her baby child	F
She could think only of blood	B
Surely her baby's cheek	X2
Had disappeared and in its place surely	L
Hung a heaviness a lengthening red a red that had no end	Y2
She shook her had It was not true of course	Z2
It was not true at all The	A
Child's face was as always the	A
Color of the paste in her paste jar	O
	-
	-
She left the table to the tune of the children's lamentations which were shriller	O
Than ever She	L
Looked out of a window She said not a word That	S2
Was one of the new Somethings	A3
The fear	O
Tying her as with iron	B3
	-
	-
Suddenly she felt his hands upon her He had followed her	O
To the window The children were whimpering now	C3
Such bits of tots And she their mother	O
Could not protect them She looked at her shoulders still	D3
Gripped in the claim of his hands She tried but could not resist the idea	A
That a red ooze was seeping spreading darkly thickly slowly	L
Over her white shoulders her own shoulders	Q2
And over all of Earth and Mars	E3
	-
	-
He whispered something to her did the Fine Prince something about love and night and intention	Q
She heard no hoof beat of the horse and saw no flash of the shining steel	F3
	-
	-
He pulled her face around to meet	G3
His and there it was close close	H3
For the first time in all the days and nights	I3
His mouth wet and red	J3
So very very very red	J3
Closed over hers	Q2
	-
	-
Then a sickness heaved within her The courtroom Coca Cola	A
The courtroom beer and hate and sweat and drone	K3
Pushed like a wall against her She wanted to bear it	I2
But his mouth would not go away and neither would the	A
Decapitated exclamation points in that Other Woman's eyes	Y
	-
	-
She did not scream	L3
She stood there	O
But a hatred for him burst into glorious flower	O
And its perfume enclasped them big	M3
Bigger than all magnolias	C
	-
	-
The last bleak news of the ballad	B
The rest of the rugged music	N3
The last quatrain	K3

Gwendolyn Brooks

A Bronzeville Mother Loiters In Mississippi. Meanwhile, A Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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