and dead these 15 years
who carried a book
on every stroll.
when daddy was dying
she left the streets
and moved back home
to tend him.
her pimp came too
her Diamond Dick
and they would take turns
reading
a bible aloud through the house.
when you poem this
and you will she would say
remember the Book of Job.
happy birthday and hope
to you Josephine
one of the easts
most wanted.
may heaven be filled
with literate men
may they bed you
with respect.
authority and how it always insistedon itself, how it was masterof the man, how it measured him, neverwas ignored or denied, and how it promisedthere would be sweetness if it was obeyedjust like the saints do, like the angelsand i opened the window and held out myuncupped hand; i swear to godi thought it could…
but thiswhat you pawni will redeemwhat you steali will concealmy private silence toyour public guiltis all i gotgirlsfirst time a white manopens his flylike a good thingwe’ll just laughlaugh real loud myblack womenchildrenwhen they ask youwhy is your mama so funnysayshe is a poetshe don’t have no sense
She will not walk away and leave these bonesto an old woman.She is a green tree in a forest of kindling.She is a greeen girl in a used poet.She has waited patient as a nunfor the second coming,when she can break through gray hairsinto blossomand her lovers will harvesthoney and thymeand the woods will be…
jauntily the way men go in groupsswinging their arms, and the onesthose sweating women whom i would have joinedafter a hard game to chew the fatwhat would we have called each other laughingjoking into our beer? where are my gangs,my teams, my mislaid sisters?all the women who could have known me,where in the world are…
another creature’s back, i wondercould i have fought these thing?surrounded by no son of mine saveold men calling Mother like in the talethe astrologer tell, i wondercould i have walk away when voicessinging in my sleep? i one old woman.always i seem to worrying now foranother young girl asleepin the plain evening.what song around her…
drops out of its box squallinginto the light. they are both squalling,animal and cage. her bars lie wet, openand empty and she has made herself againout of flesh out of dictionaries,she is always emptying and it is allthe same wound the same blood the same breaking.
