Lucille Clifton Poems

she
stolen from my bone
is it any wonder
i hunger to tunnel back
...

boys
i don't promise you nothing
but this
what you pawn
...

listen children
keep this in the place
you have for keeping
always
...

it is all blood and breaking,
blood and breaking, the thing
drops out of its box squalling
into the light. they are both squalling,
...

for mama

remember this.
she is standing by
...

fox

who
can blame her for hunkering
...

it is hard to remain human on a day
when birds perch weeping
in the trees and the squirrel eyes
do not look away but the dog ones do
...

curling them around
i hold their bodies in obscene embrace
thinking of everything but kinship.
collards and kale
...

ask me to tell how it feels
remembering your mother's face
turned to water under the white words
of the man at the shoe store. ask me,
...

harriet
if i be you
let me not forget
to be the pistol
...