outside our door.
I know she dreams us
making love;
you inside me,
her lips on my breasts.
WALKER
When I no longer have your heart
I will not request your body
your presence
or even your polite conversation.
I will go away to a far country
separated from you by the sea
—on which I cannot walk—
and refrain even from sending
letters
describing my pain.
KILLERS
With their money they bought ignorance
and killed the dreamer.
But you, Chenault,* have killed
the dreamer’s mother.
They tell me you smile happily
on TV,
mission “half-accomplished.”
I can no longer observe such pleased mad
faces.
The mending heart breaks
to break again.
* The assassin of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s mother, Mrs. Alberta King. His plan had been to murder Martin Luther King, Sr., as well.
SONGLESS
What is the point
of being artists
if we cannot save our life?
That is the cry
that wakes us
in our sleep.
Being happy is not the only
happiness.
And how many gadgets
can one person manage
at one time?
Over in the Other World
the women count
their wealth
in empty
calabashes.
How to transport
food
from watering hole
to watering
hole
has ceased to be
a problem
since the animals
died
and seed grain shrunk
to fit the pocket.
Now
it is just a matter
of who can create
the finest
decorations
on the empty
pots.
They say in Nicaragua
the whole
government
writes,
makes music
and paints,
saving their own
and helping the people save
their own lives.
(I ask you to notice
who, songless,
rules us
here.)
They say in Nicaragua
the whole
government
writes
and makes
music
saving its own
and helping the people save
their own lives.
These are not containers
void of food.
These are not decorations
on empty pots.
A FEW SIRENS
Today I am at home
writing poems.
My life goes well:
only a few sirens herald disaster
in the ghetto
down the street.
In the world, people die
of hunger.
On my block we lose
jobs, housing and breasts.
But in the world
children are lost;
whole countries of children
starved to death
before the age
of five
each year;
their mothers squatted
in the filth
around the empty cooking pot
wondering:
But I cannot pretend
to know
what they wonder.
A walled horror
instead of thought
would be my mind.
And our children
gladly starve themselves.
Thinking of the food I eat
every day
I want to vomit, like
people who throw up
at will,
understanding that whether
they digest or not
they must consume.
Can you imagine?
Rather than let the hungry
inside the restaurants
Let them eat vomit, they say.
They are applauded
for this.
They are light.
But
wasn’t there a time
when food was sacred?
When a dead child
starved naked
among the oranges
in the marketplace
spoiled
the appetite?
POEM AT
THIRTY-NINE
How I miss my father.
I wish he had not been
so tired
when I was
born.
Writing deposit slips and checks
I think of him.
He taught me how.
This is the form,
he must have said:
the way it is done.
I learned to see
bits of paper
as a way
to escape
the life he knew
and even in high school
had a savings
account.
He taught me
that telling the truth
did not always mean
a beating;
though many of my truths
must have grieved him
before the end.
How I miss my father!
He cooked like a person
dancing
in a yoga meditation
and craved the voluptuous
sharing
of good food.
Now I look and cook just like him:
my brain light;
tossing this and that
into the pot;
seasoning none of my life
the same way twice; happy to feed
whoever strays my way.
He would have grown
to admire
the woman I’ve become:
cooking, writing, chopping wood,
staring into the fire.
I SAID TO
POETRY
I said to Poetry: “I’m finished
with you.”
Having to almost die
before some weird light
comes creeping through
is no fun.
“No thank you, Creation,
no muse need apply.
I’m out for good times—
at the very least,
some painless convention.”
Poetry laid back
and played dead
until this morning.
I wasn’t sad or anything,
only restless.
Poetry said: “You remember
the desert, and how glad you were
that you have an eye
to see it with? You remember
that, if ever so slightly?”
I said: “I didn’t hear that.
Besides, it’s five o’clock in the a.m.
I’m not getting up
in the dark
to talk to you.”
Poetry said: “But think about the time
you saw the moon
over that small canyon
that you liked much better
than the grand one—and how surprised you were
that the moonlight was green
and you still had
one good eye
to see it with.
Think of that!”
“I’ll join the church!” I said, huffily,
turning my face to the wall.
“I’ll learn how to pray again!”
“Let me ask you,” said Poetry.
“When you pray, what do you think
you’ll see?”
Poetry had me.
“There’s no paper
in this room,” I said.
“And that new pen I bought
makes a funny noise.”
“Bullshit,” said Poetry.
“Bullshit,” said I.
GRAY
I have a friend
who is turning gray,
not just her hair,
and I do not know
why this is so.
Is it a lack of vitamin E
pantothenic acid, or B-12?
Or is it from being frantic
and alone?
“How long does it take you to love someone?”
I ask her.
“A hot second,” she replies.
“And how long do you love them?”
“Oh, anywhere up to several months.”
“And how long does it take you
to get over loving them?”
“Three weeks,” she said, “tops.”
Did I mention I am also
turning gray?
It is because I adore this woman
who thinks of love
in this way.
OVERNIGHTS
Staying overnight in a friend’s house
I miss my own bed
in San Francisco
and the man in my bed
but mostly just
my bed
It’s a mattress on the floor
but so what?
This bed I’m in is lumpy
It lists to one side
It has thin covers
and is short
All night I toss and turn
dreaming of my bed
in San Francisco
with me in it
and the man too sometimes
in it
but together
Sometimes we are eating pastrami
which he likes
Sometimes we are eating
Other things
MY DAUGHTER IS
COMING!
My daughter is coming!
I have bought her a bed
and a chair
a mirror, a lamp
and a desk.
Her room is all ready
except that the curtains
are torn.
Do I have time to buy shoji panels
for the window?
I do not.
First I must write a speech
see the doctor about my tonsils
which are dying ahead of schedule
see the barber and do a wash
cross the country
cross Brooklyn and Manhattan
MAKE A SPEECH
READ A POEM
liberate my daughter
from her father and Washington, D.C.
recross the country
and present her to her room.
My daughter is coming!
Will she like her bed,
her chair, her mirror
desk and lamp
Or will she see only
the torn curtains?
WHEN GOLDA MEIR
WAS IN AFRICA
When Golda Meir
was in Africa
she shook out her hair
and combed it
everywhere she went.
According to her autobiography
Africans loved this.
In Russia, Minneapolis, London, Washington, D.C.
Germany, Palestine, Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem
she never combed at all.
There was no point. In those
places people said, “She looks like
any other aging grandmother. She looks
like a troll. Let’s sell her cookery
and guns.”
“Kreplach your cookery,” said Golda.
Only in Africa could she finally
settle down and comb her hair.
The children crept up and stroked it,
and she felt beautiful.
Such wonderful people, Africans
Childish, arrogant, self-indulgent, pompous,
cowardly and treacherous—a great disappointment
to Israel, of course, and really rather
ridiculous in international affairs,
but, withal, opined Golda, a people of charm
and good taste.
IF “THOSE PEOPLE”
LIKE YOU
If “those people” like you
it is a bad sign.
It is the kiss of death.
This is the kind of thing we discuss
among ourselves.
We were about to throw out
a perfectly good man.
“They are always telling me
I’ve got to meet him! They
are always saying how superior
he is! And those who cannot
say he’s superior say ‘How Nice.’
Well! We know what this means.
The man’s insufferable. They’re
insufferable. How can he stand
them, if he means any good to us?”
It so happened I knew this man.
“You’ve got to meet him,” I said.
“He is superior, nice, and not at all
insufferable.” And this is true.
But the talk continued:
If “those people” like you
it is a bad sign.
It is the kiss of death.
Because that is the kind of thing
we talk about
among ourselves.
ON SIGHT
I am so thankful I have seen
The Desert
And the creatures in The Desert
And the desert Itself.
The Desert has its own moon
With my own eye
There is no flag on it.
Trees of the desert have arms
All of which are always up
That is because the moon is up
The sun is up
Also the sky
The stars
Clouds
None with flags.
If there were flags, I doubt
The trees would point.
Would you?
I’M REALLY
VERY FOND
I’m really very fond of you,
he said.
I don’t like fond.
It sounds like something
you would tell a dog.
Give me love,
or nothing.
Throw your fond in a pond,
I said.
But what I felt for him
was also warm, frisky,
moist-mouthed,
eager,
and could swim away
if forced to do so.
REPRESENTING
THE UNIVERSE
There are five people in this room
who still don’t know what I’m saying.
“What is she saying?” they’re asking.
“What is she doing here?”
It is not enough to be interminable;
one must also be precise.
The Wasichus* did not kill them to eat; they
killed them for the metal that makes them crazy,
and they took only the hides to sell. Sometimes
they did not even take the hides, only the
tongues; and I have heard that fire-boats came
down the Missouri River loaded with dried bison
tongues.… And when there was nothing left
but heaps of bones, the Wasichus came and
gathered up even the bones and sold them.
—Black Elk,
Black Elk Speaks
* Wasichu in Sioux means “he who takes the fat.”
FAMILY OF
Sometimes I feel so bad
I ask myself
Who in the world
Have I murdered?
It is a Wasichu’s voice
That asks this question,
Coming from nearly inside of me.
It is asking to be let in, of course.
I am here too! he shouts,
Shaking his fist.
Pay some attention to me!
But if I let him in
What a mess he’ll make!
Even now asking who
He’s murdered!
Next he’ll complain
Because we don’t keep a maid!
He is murderous and lazy
And I fear him,
This small, white man;
Who would be neither courteous
Nor clean
Without my help.
By the hour I linger
On his deficiencies
And his unfortunate disposition,
Keeping him sulking
And kicking
At the door.
There is the mind that creates
Without loving, for instance,
The childish greed;
The boatloads and boatloads
of tongues …
Besides, where would he fit
If I did let him in?
No sitting at round tables
For him!
I could be a liberal
And admit one of his children;
Or be a radical and permit two.
But it is he asking
To be let in, alas.
Our mothers learned to receive him occasionally,
Passing as Christ. But this did not help us much.
Or perhaps it made all the difference.
But there. He is bewildered
And tuckered out with the waiting.
He’s giving up and going away.
Until the next time.
And murdered quite sufficiently, too, I think,
Until the next time.
EACH ONE, PULL ONE
(Thinking of Lorraine Hansberry)
We must say it all, and as clearly
as we can. For, even before we are dead,
they are busy
trying to bury us.
Were we black? Were we women? Were we gay?
Were we the wrong shade of black? Were we yellow?
Did we, God forbid, love the wrong person, country
or politics? Were we Agnes Smedley or John Brown?
But, most of all, did we write exactly what we saw,
as clearly as we could? Were we unsophisticated
enough to cry and scream?
Well, then, they will fill our eyes,
our ears, our noses and our mouths
with the mud
of oblivion. They will chew up
our fingers in the night. They will pick
their teeth with our pens. They will sabotage
both our children
and our art.
Because when we show what we see,