A Grown Woman's Love
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There's no recipe Saying how much sugar To stir into this Cornucopia of desire No ungodly premonitions Beamed up from Atlantis No life-and-death message From Bacchus or Galatea No dark-haired mermaids No lighthouse in a storm No sirens on the rocks I'm going out And shout it to the top Of my voice Fill the air With what I feel I don't care This isn't some little girl's Double dare Or flouncy dream come true This is a grown woman's love This is a grown woman's love No rhyme or reason In a perfect season Nothing to do with what's above This is a grown woman's love This is a grown woman's love I'm going out In the city of chaos I don't give a damn If I am just one Star in the cosmos Of broken things Hypnotised by what [End Page 576] A touch can bring This is a grown woman's love This is a grown woman's love I'm going Down into the valley Across Katoomba Till the green cockatoo Knows what I feel Is truly real This is a grown woman's love This is a grown woman's love There's no recipe No twenty-seven easy lessons No how-to-do-it manual No mapped-out route or schema No one thousand and one ways To get to happiness No shortcuts Or roads not to take I'm going out And stop the midday traffic Shout it to the top Of my voice Fill the air With what I feel I don't care This isn't some little girl's Double dare Or flouncy dream come true This is a grown woman's love This is a grown woman's love No rhyme or reason In a perfect season Nothing to do with what's above This is a grown woman's love This is a grown woman's love
Yusef Komunyakaa, the subject of this issue of Callaloo, teaches at Princeton University. His most recent book of poems is Taboo: The Wishbone Trilogy, Part I. The numerous prizes, awards and honors he has received for his poetry include a chancellorship with the American Academy of Poets, the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters (Wesleyan University), the William Faulkner Prize (Universite Rennes, France), the Kingsley Tufts Award for Poetry, and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
