The dandelion stares
In the yellow sunlight.
How very still it is!
When it is old and grey,
I blow its white hair away,
And leave it with a bald head.
From Caroling Dusk (Harper & Brothers, 1927), edited by Countee Cullen. This poem is in the public domain.
I hate being hated even though I
provoke it, not by committing major wrongs
like murder, more like a regular
pattern of being selfish or forgetful,
which is another word for selfish.
If you hate me, trust me I know—
in fact, I have a ledger of people, like you,
who hate me, and I rifle through it every
morning obsessing over the names more
than they think about mine—a passing
thought, a microsecond of dislike or worse,
indifference like the Godzilla rays of fire
I feel buzz out of your eyes when
you scroll past my pictures on Instagram.
I should focus on the people who love me,
every therapist I ever had has told me so,
but I don’t need them to love me more,
so that’s pointless. If we hate each other,
I assure you my hate has a trace of love
with a dash of hope. It’s the throbbing
contradiction of hate’s dark thrall.
Copyright © 2023 by Carmen Giménez. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 8, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.
Chilled into a serenity
As rigid as your pose
You linger trustingly,
But a gutter waits for you.
Your elegance does not secure
You favors with the sun.
He is not one to pity fragileness.
He thinks all cheeks should burn
And feel how tears can run.
From Caroling Dusk (Harper & Brothers, 1927), edited by Countee Cullen. This poem is in the public domain.