Lucille Clifton (June 27, 1936 - February 13, 2010 / Baltimore, Maryland)

it is all blood and breaking,
blood and breaking, the thing
drops out of its box squalling
into the light. they are both squalling,
animal and cage. her bars lie wet, open
and empty and she has made herself again
out of flesh out of dictionaries,
she is always emptying and it is all
the same wound the same blood the same breaking.