Eleven More American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Poetics Across North America

the river between us

Lucille Clifton | 65 from The Terrible Stories telling our stories the fox came every evening to my door asking for nothing. my fear trapped me inside, hoping to dismiss her but she sat till morning, waiting. at dawn we would, each of us, rise from our haunches, look through the glass then walk away. did she gather her village around her and sing of the hairless moon face, the trembling snout, the ignorant eyes? child, i tell you now it was not the animal blood i was hiding from, it was the poet in her, the poet and the terrible stories she could tell. from Mercy the river between us in the river that your father fished my father was baptized. it was their hunger that defined them, 66 | Eleven More American Women Poets in the 21st Century one, a man who knew he could feed himself if it all came down, the other a man who knew he needed help. this is about more than color. it is about how we learn to see ourselves. it is about geography and memory. it is about being poor people in america. it is about my father and yours and you and me and the river that is between us. from Voices sorrows who would believe them winged who would believe they could be beautiful who would believe they could fall so in love with mortals that they would attach themselves as scars attach and ride the skin sometimes we hear them in our dreams rattling their skulls clicking their bony fingers they have heard me beseeching as i whispered into my own cupped hands enough not me again ...