{"id":106899,"date":"2022-06-25T08:37:07","date_gmt":"2022-06-25T12:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/?p=106899"},"modified":"2022-06-27T10:11:23","modified_gmt":"2022-06-27T14:11:23","slug":"hour-1-swimming-in-the-heat-of-1950s-mississippi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/hour-1-swimming-in-the-heat-of-1950s-mississippi\/","title":{"rendered":"Hour 1: Swimming in the Heat of 1950s Mississippi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Wednesday was Colored Day<\/p>\n<p>At the Jackson Public Pool<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Arriving too late,<\/p>\n<p>All we could see was a rainbow of brown heads<\/p>\n<p>Bobbing up and down in water<\/p>\n<p>Once cool but now heated by bodies<\/p>\n<p>Packed like cargo but<\/p>\n<p>Pressed too close together to lie flat and flay<\/p>\n<p>Through the warmed water<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We wore our swim clothes:<\/p>\n<p>(There was no Colored Day<\/p>\n<p>For public toilets or changing places.)<\/p>\n<p>Walking barefoot from the car,<\/p>\n<p>Climbing in<\/p>\n<p>Pushing aside other bodies<\/p>\n<p>Bobbing along the water<\/p>\n<p>Cooling off the sweat<\/p>\n<p>Raining from the relentless sun<\/p>\n<p>Beaming its hate upon our heads<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>An hour was too long to stay<\/p>\n<p>Walking the bottom of sweat and pee scented water;<\/p>\n<p>No need to carry a towel<\/p>\n<p>When the oppressive sun dried us on the walk to the car<\/p>\n<p>But towels covered the seats<\/p>\n<p>To catch the dirty water<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We bathed at home sweet home:<\/p>\n<p>Lying face down in the cool soapy water<\/p>\n<p>Kicking our feet<\/p>\n<p>Imagining what it would be like to swim<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Wednesday was Colored Day At the Jackson Public Pool &nbsp; Arriving too late, All we could see was a rainbow of brown heads Bobbing up and down in water Once cool but now heated by bodies Packed like cargo but Pressed too close together&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":853,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[4923],"class_list":["post-106899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","tag-2022marathon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/853"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106899"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123821,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106899\/revisions\/123821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}