Screen Time

 Screen Call

John Clare Stokes

Sunday nights we would sit out

on the porch listening to the 

drums of New Mt Zion church, thinking

it sounded as the Waziri in the 

Tarzan movie and we would 

shiver in the Sopchoppy heat. 

Eventually the tribe would 

disperse, and mamma  would

tuck us in early for school day.

We were timid to venture the

next afternoon across the field

in the direction of Zion, fearing 

there we hungry cannibals lurking.

We never ventured too far from the  earshot of the back porch, where we 

knew when time came, mamma

would call us home, safe from

the drumming of New Mt Zion, 

ever waiting to carry us beyond

the call of mamma and the back porch.