Tuesday 9/11/01
From the Academy of American Poets Archives. This poem is part of "September Suite" by Lucille Clifton, 2001.
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won’t you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
1991
he ordered me to do what
i would have done anyway
i knew it as did he but always
he had to order it
so that he could tell himself
he was with a woman who wanted him
that this breast was a woman’s
breast it was a slave’s
who did not give who was
taken he felt no pleasure
here no deep desire
though well there could have been
2026
it is the hard
edge of things
i am avoiding
the separations
so that i can take my glasses off
and then i cannot tell
which are the leaves
and which the angels
like blake
like that man
who lived with the lepers
not noticing what was sin
and what was grace
visioning visions vision
i take my glasses off
so i can see
2026