lucille clifton - sorrows

Lucille Clifton

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 from Poetry, September 2007