[Maya Angelou’s “No No No No”]

I have waited

Toes curled, hat rolled

Heart and genitals

In hand

On the back porches

Of forever

In the kitchens and fields

Of rejections

On the cold marble steps

Of America's White Out-House

In the drop seats of buses

And the open flies of war

No more

The dream that you

Will cease haunting me

Down in fetid swamps of fear

And will turn to embrace your own

Humanity

Which I AM

No more

The hope that

The razored insults

Which mercury-slide over your tongue

Will be forgotten

And you will learn the words of love

Mother Brother Father Sister Lover Friend

My hopes

Dying slowly

Rose petals falling

Beneath an autumn red moon

Will not adorn your unmarked graves

My dreams

Lying quietly

A dark pool under the trees

Will not carry your name

To a forgetful shore

And what a pity

What a pity

That pity has folded in upon itself

And old man's mouth

Whose teeth are gone

And I have no pity