I learned to be honest
the way I learned to swim
dropped into the inevitable
my father’s thumbs in my hairless armpits
about to give way
I am trying
to surface   carefully
remembering
the water’s shadow-legged musk
cannons of salt   exploding
my nostrils’ rage
and for years
my powerful breast stroke
was a declaration of war.

Audre Lorde
”Our Dead Behind Us: Poems”
p. 39

i haveta turn my television down sometimes cuz
i cant stand to have white people/ shout at me/
sometimes i turn it off
cuz i cant look at em in my bedroom either/
being so white
that’s why i like/ greens/
they cdnt even smell you/ wdnt know what you taste like
without sneakin/ got no
idea you shd be tingled wit hot sauce & showered wit vinegar
yr pot liquor spread on hot rolls

i gotta turn the tv off cuz the white people
keep playing games/ & followin presidents on vacation at the war
there’s too much of a odor problem on the tv too/ which
brings me back to greens

i remember my grandma at the market pickin turnips
collards kale & mustards/ to mix-em up/ drop a ½ a strick a lean
in there wit some ham hock & oh my whatta life/
i lived in her kitchen/ wit greens i cd recollect
yes the very root of myself
        the dirt & lil bugs i looked for in the fresh collards/
        turnin each leaf way so slow/ under the spicket/ watchin
        lil mounds of dirt fall down the drain
i done a good job
grandma tol me/ got them greens just ready for the pot
& you know/ wdnt no white man on the tv/
talkin loud n formal make no sense of the miracle
a good pot a greens on a friday nite cd make to me
that’s the only reason i turn em off the tv
cant stand they gossipin abt the news/ sides they dont
never like the criminals & enemies i like anyway
that’s why i like GREENS/ i know how to cook em
& i sure can dream gd/ soppin up the pot liquor
& them peppers/

ntozake shange
’A Daughter’s Geography’
pp. 59-60