Because I keep running into her Collected Poems and regretting every time I don’t buy it. When that birthday comes, this is at the top of the list.
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 envying our crackling hair our spice filled flesh they have heard me beseeching as I whispered into my own cupped hands enough not me again enough but who can distinguish one human voice amid such choruses of desire -Lucille Clifton
“who would believe they could be / beautiful”
I have been surprised by how sweet sorrow can be.
I had never heard of Lucille Clifton before (because I’m still a poetry dunce), but I love this poem. I shall write her name on a post-it note and go looking for more of her poems when night falls (which is when I most want to read poetry, for some reason).
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You’re not a dunce in anything, but I do think you’ll like her because she is an ultimate sass master.
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