A poem a day for 2013 - day 325 - Write. Now. Woman.

I know what it is like to be the kind of woman I am
A woman who waves her hands and hips under the stars
Into the wind of darkness I am an innocuous sapling in the forest
Waving magic wands that light up and diminish like a bic
In the back row of a poetry spot
Can you hear those elongated vowels
The scent of freedom balled up anyway between the pages
O how I love it
O how I love myself and artists like me
Debunking the stereotypes of what others think we should be

We know ourselves salient
Sanctioned by our venerable elders
We are necessary to the now
We are super heroes leaping the pejoratives in the daily news
Leaving editors deranged

Listen to the noises we make with our tongues
The clacking of our jaws to signal another
Smell the incense in our locks, our Afros and twists
Hair falling straight to the ground
Reach to Oshun
We are so beautiful

We are so water
We are so ocean
We are so fluid
So liquid so clean and life
Like pomegranate and coochie and moon and lilies
Don't that sound so free

My people are amazing
Look us in the eyes and see the places we've been
Planets have been named after us
We are everywhere
Standing on stages spilling life from our limbs
Come up and say hi
Do you want to put your hand in my shirt to see if milk will
Drip from my breasts
It will
It will you know

Listen
Listen to all these poets and sounds
Like lilies
Like tears
Like women giving birth
Do you know how that sounds
I know what it is like to give birth
To release to God something that was
Never yours to own