The Train's A Comin (Part 2 End) Poem by Melvina Germain

Imagine, here we are three happy black girls up from Canada,
two light skin blacks, one visible black that's me and one poor
Italian young man who doesn't know what he's in for. All
standing at the side of the road wondering what comes next.

Walking the streets of America, a whole new Country ya see.
We're walking the streets of America way back in 1963. There
was a thickness we didn't understand, a thickness we never knew.
We left peace across the border and began to walk in complicated
shoes.

I felt the heavy hands of white power as he picked me up from
The pavement headed t'ward the sky. Marry me miss, marry me
today, laughing while walking away. We all stared at each other,
wondering what the heck was that. I felt an uneasiness I had
never felt before. The sooner we get back home, the faster we
can close this door.

It was that segregation we felt deep in our soul. We weren't
separated only by gender ya see, it was the color coding, almost
like counting one, two and three. You could see the wide
opened saucers as we walked almost hand in hand. Both black
and whites were appalled until we opened our mouths and they
heard it all.

It was a sigh of relief when some heard the accent coming down,
Awww you all from across the border, it's a whole different
world over here sistah and the advice began to pour. I thought
my heart would stop beating when I picked it up from the floor.
Ya see it was as if it was trampled by a thousand elephants or
more.

The pain tugged at my soul and I fought hard to hold the tears
back, reality was cruel as it began to unfold. That poor little
Italian boy, well he didn't know what to do and he begged us
to come back home with him but we kept walking in those
complicated shoes.

The white only signs was a dagger in the heart, all things
changed, where did it end, where did it start. It was like
walking through a museum gazing slowly at passers by.
Nodding heads, half smiles, red eyes, hate trickling
through. I knew we were protected by a power some of
these poor people had never met and I would share this
experience through life with absolutely no regret. The
reality of the beast is a hard blow to bear but the juice of
freedom I knew awaited me over there.

Written by: Melvina Germain
Date: Mar.7/2016