Audre Lorde

Some women love
to wait
for life     for a ring
in the June light     for a touch
of the sun to heal them     for another
woman's voice to make them whole
to untie their hands
put words in their mouths
form to their passages     sound
to their screams     for some other sleeper
to remember     their future     their past.

Some women wait for their right
train          in the wrong station
in the alleys of the morning
for the noon to holler
the night come down.

Some women wait for love
to rise up
the child of their promise
to gather from earth
what they do not plant
to claim pain for labor
to become
the tip of an arrow     to aim
at the heart of now
but it never stays.

Some women wait for visions
that do not return
where they were not welcome
naked
for invitations to places
they always wanted
to visit
to repeated.

Some women wait for themselves
around the next corner
and call the empty spot peace
but the opposite of living
is not only living
and the stars do not care.

Some women wait for something
to change     and nothing
does change
so they change
themselves.

the first answer was incorrect
the second was
sorry          the third trimmed its toenails
on the Vatican steps
the fourth went mad 
the fifth
nursed a grudge until it bore twins
that drank poisoned grape juice in Jonestown
the sixth     wrote a book about it
the seventh
argued a case before the Supreme Court
against taxation on Girl Scout Cookies
the eighth held a news conference
while four Black babies
and one another     picketed New York City
for a hospital bed to die in
the ninth and tenth swore
Revenge on the Opposition
and the eleventh dug their graves
next to Eternal Truth
the twelfth
processed funds from a Third World country
that provides doctors for Central Harlem
the thirteenth
refused
the fourteenth sold cocaine and shamrocks
near a toilet in the Big Apple circus
the fifteenth
changed the question.

I am fourteen
and my skin has betrayed me
the boy I cannot live without
still sucks his thumb
in secret
how come my knees are
always so ashy
what if I die
before morning
and momma's in the bedroom
with the door closed.

I have to learn how to dance
in time for the next party
my room is too small for me
suppose I die before graduation
they will sing sad melodies
but finally
tell the truth about me
There is nothing I want to do
and too much
that has to be done
and momma's in the bedroom
with the door closed.

Nobody even stops to think
about my side of it
I should have been on Math Team
my marks were better than his
why do I have to be
the one
wearing braces
I have nothing to wear tomorrow
will I live long enough
to grow up
and momma's in the bedroom 
with the door closed.