Two Poems

Miss Mary Mack Introduces Her Wings

My name    is    Miss Mary    Mack    Mack    Mack

    you sing it    my name

I turned into a bluebird last summer, I flew

through all the south. My wings are blueand I touch the sky.

At first, I decided I was never coming back.

I took off my black            housedress. I knew freedom

was not the act of flying        but the steady beat of wings.

It was my steady black,        blue and my blues were gone,

I wanted to be        a bird and became.

Miss Mary Mack Considers God

No fence at most plantations, I still watch

what I sing, but I sing.

I think God must be a field full of caws.

I know God can't have a man's eyesagainst a small body. There are no fencesbecause to run is to die, they must fly from here.

I think if God is a white man he sits low in his chairand won't but only sometimesmake eye contact with the angels.

God is two black children sitting under an old oak        that has not had blood wiped on its bark.        Is a Sunday        spent in the sky. Where tracks        cannot be tracked.