black girl looking at a blackbird
singer
from a darker egg
she named herself
blackbird
when poets speak of gardens
lost
will they remember blackbird
does adam
someone feeds the young
someone cleans the fruit
someone turns the twigs
someone warns that reckoning
is at hand years pass
she is turned sixty
her children walk away
men in the streets
look past her smiling
they do not notice blackbird
at night she dreams herself
no stranger to desire
lifted
on her mutilated wing
to lunge and dip and rise
when she is expelled
she is smiling
she has dreamed and
she believes
where blackbird is
is glory
glory glory
From At the Gate: Uncollected Poems, 1987–2010 by Lucille Clifton, edited by Kazim Ali. Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Boa Editions, Ltd.