The corn whispers, did you know that? It tells of midnight goin's ons. Of things it, and that old moon might see. But I don't listen to it no more. It lied to me once too often, and now I ignore it when I go walkin'. I listen instead to the whippoorwills and them jar flies. I ain't afraid of the corn. Or the dark time. But I have respect for it. 'Specially after the night I found a nekked body layin', all tore up and twisted out there in the rows. Ain't no place for a young white girl to be. Dead or alive. And I ran like hell too, there was somethin' out there. Somethin' not right in them miles and miles of cornstalks. I thought of maybe listenin' to the corn again. But I don't want to. No sir, I surely don't.

Lookin' back on that night, I think of a smell I smelled. Foul odor it'd been. Like dead possum. Dead somethin'. And I try to forget that growl too. Like a bear mixed with a painter. And a old wild dog mixed in. I'm sure glad I got me some good runnin' feet. Yes, sir'ee. I don't even 'member the rocks I run on. Or the pain they caused. I do 'member that white shape layin' there. Them eyes. Starin' up at the moon. Glittering still, like there was life left. But there couldn'ta been. Not like that. No sir'ee bob.

Now, I's here in a place I don't wanna be. They say I hurt that white girl. But I didn't. Somethin' foul did though. The thing that sounds like a devil from hell. Them white folk--they ain't listenin' to me. They's ignorin' me, jest like I ignored the corn. I wisht I'd done listened to that old corn. Mebbe had I paid attention, it'd told me of this here. This fix I's in now.

I lay with my arms behind my head an' I stare up through the tiny winda, at old man moon. Sort'a like that little white girl done. I wonder, do my dark eyes glitter with life left in 'em? Or are they dead ... dead, as I wait here in this here cage. Gone to God already--waitin' for the hangman's rope to squeeze the life clean out'ta me.