The Demonstration Poem by Gregory Orr

Democratic National Convention
Atlantic City, New Jersey, 1964
They bob above us all afternoon—
three giant charcoal portraits
of Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney,
civil rights martyrs whose tortured
bodies have just been found
in the red clay wall
of a dam in rural Mississippi.
Staring up at their flat, larger-
than-life faces, I envy the way
they gaze at the gray ocean
and the gray buildings
with the calm indifference
of those whose agonies are over.
Myself, I'm a frightened teen-ager
at my first demonstration,
carrying a placard that demands
the seating of a mixed delegation
from a Southern state.
No one

prepared me for the crowd's
hostility, the names we're called.
Still, we chant the slogan reason
proposed: "One man, one vote."
And still it holds—the small shape
we make on the dilapidated boardwalk-
reminding me now of the magi circles
medieval conjurers drew
to protect themselves from demons
their spells had summoned up.