Lucille Clifton Poems

these hips are big hips.
they need space to
move around in.
they don't fit into little
...

my daddy has paid the rent
and the insurance man is gone
and the lights is back on
and my uncle brud has hit
...

if there is a river
more beautiful than this
bright as the blood
red edge of the moon if
...

whatever slid into my mother's room that
late june night, tapping her great belly,
summoned me out roundheaded and unsmiling.
is this the moon, my father used to grin.
...

i am accused of tending to the past
as if i made it,
as if i sculpted it
with my own hands. i did not.
...

when I watch you
wrapped up like garbage
sitting, surrounded by the smell
of too old potato peels
...

what does this mean.
to see walking men
wrapped in the color of death,
to hear from their tongue
...

There is a girl inside.
She is randy as a wolf.
She will not walk away and leave these bones
to an old woman.
...

she
stolen from my bone
is it any wonder
i hunger to tunnel back
...

boys
i don't promise you nothing
but this
what you pawn
...