AfroPoets Famous Writers
This Is a Sad-Ass Poem for a Black Woman to Be Writing
We have not, up to
now, known each other.
The light jive and fly
speech over public
tables do not count
for much.
I look for
you at your place, in
the few books and bare
walls, even listen
for echoes of you
in the music. I no-
tice an old milk car-
ton; I hear so much
anonymous noise.
You expend yourself-
something - within me
and I pant beneath
you, open, heaving.
You withdraw; I close
and stillness and breath,
bodies burrowing
into damp sheets are
the only sounds in
the silence. Silence:
Good jive, a light rap
and fly speech over
a public table.
Written by Sherley Anne Williams (1944-1999)
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