80spoems/whtwomen

WHITE WOMEN WITH BROOMS

White women with brooms,
see the white women
keeping their world together,
their voices filled with oblique
demands when they speak
to their husbands.
White women sweeping each leaf,
every particle of shedding life.

She maka me wanta spit
all over this gorgeous earth
she thinks she owns
some piece of.

She maka me want to collect
dirt in pretty bags, build an altar
to it. She maka me feel filth,
loosens my blood from its ancestry
and social expectation.
White women with brooms.

1987