An Explanation
Look heah! ’Splain to me de reason
Why you said to Squire Lee,
Der wuz twelve ole chicken thieves
In dis heah town, includin’ me.
Ef he tole you dat, my brudder,
He said sump’n dat warn’t true;
W’at I said wuz dis, dat der wuz
Twelve, widout includin’ you.
Oh! . . . !—
Copyright Credit: James Weldon Johnson, "An Explanation" from Complete Poems (New York: Penguin Books, 2000).
Source: Complete Poems (2000)