Clifton uses Byrd’s body to emphasize the difficulty and reality of living in a Black body. Black skin is a visible and permanent marker of difference. Here, the body is both the murderers’ justification for violence, and also the site of the violence. In addition, the destruction of the body reflects the historical destruction of Black lives and culture. We get graphic descriptions of the severed slumped head, arm, and hand, which are given the agency of action and voice.

In a crime, the body becomes an important source of evidence. The physical body is the site of forensic evidence that can help give insight into the crime. In the real-life investigation of the crime, Byrd’s body helped determine facts, such as how long Byrd survived during the lynching. But in the poem, Clifton allows Byrd’s body to testify by speaking for itself and acting as a witness to the crime. The body, whether described by forensic experts or by a poet, acts as the most important source of information about the crime.

In the final stanza, Clifton highlights the dirt surrounding the head of the dead man. The first reference to this substance is metaphorical: “the dirt covers us all” (Line 15), the speaker says, recalling a grave—the place where a deceased is ritually interred and covered by earth as a gesture of remembrance, peace, and dignity.