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Hair—braided chestnut, coiled like a lyncher's rope, Eyes—fagots, Lips—old scars, or the first red blisters, Breath—the last sweet scent of cane, And her slim body, white as the ash of black flesh after flame.
From Cane by Jean Toomer. Copyright © 1923 Boni and Liveright, renewed 1951 by Jean Toomer. Used with the permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.
whisper of yellow globes
gleaming on lamp-posts that sway
like bootleg licker drinkers in the fog
and let your breath be moist against me
like bright beads on yellow globes
telephone the power-house
that the main wires are insulate
I am a reaper whose muscles set at sundown. All my oats are
cradled.
But I am too chilled, and too fatigued to bind them. And I
hunger.
I crack a grain between my teeth. I do not taste it.
I have been in the fields all day. My throat is dry. I hunger.
My body is opaque to the soul.
Driven of the spirit, long have I sought to temper it unto the spirit’s longing,
But my mind, too, is opaque to the soul.
A closed lid is my soul’s flesh-eye.
O Spirits of whom my soul is but a little finger,
Direct it to the lid of its flesh-eye.
I am weak with much giving.