Curly Hatton was nothing any more But a dry throat and a pair of burnt black hands That held a hot gun he was always firing Though he no longer remembered why he fired. They ran up a cluttered hill and took hacked ground And held it for a while and fired for a while, And then the blue men came and they ran away, To go back, after a while, when the blue men ran. There was a riddled house and a crow in a tree, There was uneven ground. It was hard to run. The gun was heavy and hot. There once had been A person named Lucy and a flag and a star And a cane chair beside wistarias Where a nigger brought you a drink. These had ceased to exist. There was only very hot sun and being thirsty. Yells⁠—crashings⁠—screams from black lips⁠—a dead, tattered crow In a tattered tree. There had once been a person named Lucy Who had had an importance. There was none of her now.