“I am a Black woman
writing my way to the future”
Berlin is Hard on Colored Girls
“Perhaps a strange woman walks down from the corner
into my bedroom
wasps nest behind her ears
she is eating a half-ripe banana”
“On Thursday she buried her featherbed
at the foot of the garden
a Manx cat’s bleached pelvic bone twirled in the sun.”
To The Poet Who Happens to Be Black and The Black Poet Who Happens to Be a Woman
“I was born in the gut of Blackness
from between my mother’s particular thighs”
“Men claim the easiest spots
stand knee-deep in calm dark water where the trout is proven.”
“A killing summer heat wraps up the city
emptied of all who are not bound to stay”
“But my life is not portable now
said the trollop maiden
I need fixed light
to make my witless orchids
grow”
The Women of Dan Dance with Their Swords in Their Hands To Mark the Time When They Were Warriors
“I did not fall from the sky
I
nor descend like a plague of locusts”
to MLK jr.
“Now rock the boat to a fare-thee-well
Once we suffered dreaming
into the place where the children are playing”
“Everyone wants to know
how it was in the old days”
You can also find open access poems and essays by Lorde in the Reveal Digital Independent Voices collection of feminist, Black American, and LGBTQ publications.
