Godfearing
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Godfearing
Jesus loves me this I know. . . You knew, You mighty God, that I was flesh and sacrifice on those childhood nights: And wasn't I just a girl under a blanket made from my Daddy's hands? And didn't he tell me I was ugly and fat, that only he would want me no way? And didn't he smile so pretty and I tried to be brave when he gave me those dollar bills? And didn't he tell me not to tell nobody when he took what he took from me? And where were You, my so-called Savior when the hours passed on through—where were You, in that early, two-faced light? You know me now and knew me way back then. Simple girl is what I was. What I was, believing Your simple song.
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers is author of two books of poems, The Gospel of Barbecue (Kent State University Press, 2000) and Outlandish Blues (Wesleyan University Press, 2003). Some of her new work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Callaloo, Brilliant Corners: A Journal of Jazz and Literature, Prairie Schooner, Ploughshares, and the anthology These Hands I Know: Writing About the African-American Family. She is an assistant professor of English at the University of Oklahoma and a book review editor of Callaloo.
