[poets in their bassinets]
poets in their bassinets
dream a splendid woman holding over their baby eyes
a globe, shining with
possibility. someone,
she smiles, has to see this
and report it, and they
in their innocence
believing that all will be
as beautiful as she is,
whimper use me, use me
and oh how terrifying
that she does.
Copyright © 2024 by Lucille Clifton. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 13, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.
“‘I don’t write out of what I know; I write out of what I wonder. Poetry and art are not about answers to me; they are about questions.’
—Lucille Clifton.
My mother ‘poemed’ out of wonder: “Why this or that?” “How so?” and “What if?” She was accepting of answers that were both glorious and terrifying. Lucille wondered about all life, all lives—past, present, future, but most meticulously her own.
This poem is Lucille’s description of the soul-deep covenant between poets and poetry.”
—Sidney Clifton
Lucille Clifton
Lucille Clifton, the author of Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988–2000 (BOA Editions, 2000), which won the National Book Award, was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 1999.