In the Orange Grove

(For Crosley Green)

April 4, 1989,

a wounded man lay bleeding

in the orange grove

The jilted ex-girlfriend

spun an inconsistent,

improbable tale

Tangled roots of deception

permeated the orange grove

The responding officers’

primary suspect, uninvestigated,

became the state’s star witness

as the shadows engulfed

the orange grove

Almost an hour passed

before her call to the police

to a location she misidentified,

delaying the arrival of help

for a man still conscious,

who never spoke of an assailant

A second crime was

cultivated in the orange grove

“A black man!,” she claimed,

holding a gun

A chill filled the air

in the orange grove

The police were eager to pick

the low-hanging fruit,

a small-time drug dealer

recently released from prison

Contradicting the physical description

of a man she “didn’t even get

a real good look at,”

The oranges, they thought,

all looked the same

Crosley Green’s race

was referred to

one hundred forty times

during the trial

It was always darkness

they feared in the orange grove

Without a shred of physical evidence,

the all-white jury convicted

Sentenced to death,

strange fruit again to hang

from the trees

in the orange grove

Chip Flynn died on the scene,

Crosley Green to be strapped

to the electric chair

Two lives taken,

two men left to die

in the orange grove

The prosecution’s four other witnesses,

all claiming threats and coercion by the state,

recanted their testimony

Justice eroded,

truth left to decay

in the orange grove

July 20, 2018,

the verdict finally overturned,

key evidence withheld

by the prosecution

Still Crosley Green sits in prison

as the state appeals,

trying to make sure

he never again

sees an orange grove

Thirty years in prison,

almost twenty on death row,

The thirty-one-year-old man

now sixty-three

The fruit of youth

left to rot

in the orange grove

Written December 11, 2020