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My mother bore me in the southern wild, And I am black, but O! my soul is white; White as an angel is the English child: But I am black as if bereav'd of light. My mother taught me underneath a tree And sitting down before the heat of day, She took me on her lap and kissed me, And pointing to the east began to say. Look on the rising sun: there God does live And gives his light, and gives his heat away. And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive Comfort in morning joy in the noonday. And we are put on earth a little space, That we may learn to bear the beams of love, And these black bodies and this sun-burnt face Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove. For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear The cloud will vanish we shall hear his voice. Saying: come out from the grove my love & care, And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice. Thus did my mother say and kissed me, And thus I say to little English boy. When I from black and he from white cloud free, And round the tent of God like lambs we joy: Ill shade him from the heat till he can bear, To lean in joy upon our fathers knee. And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair, And be like him and he will then love me.

1 No one felt in the dark for his hat. No one budged an inch. Thus the story draws to its end. No one felt over the edge of her silk pocket to touch her parking ticket. No one even wished to walk out of the dark to the street. 2 Over the transparent page I traced my name. I thought about The Bird That Turns Around, How To Blow A Brick Over, What To Do While Waiting For The Doctor, Answers To Problems On Page 2,000, The Chair That Comes To You, The Mysterious Paper Purse, The Universe Around Us,Lift To Erase. 3 Those days everything I thought trembled through the rotating blades of an electric fan. The way my voice moved through it. The way my fingers shook. I wore a two-tiered hat. A dead mule is huge. The man with the stick was fat. 4 A dead deer has the face of a rat. Last night I watched seven white deer walk single file across the black edge, the levee’s border. Slowly, each one looked me over, saw I was sleeping, and soon came closer to lick my face all over. 5 All fall I played at being a slave. In the red embers of fires I made I burned slips of paper with politicians’ names to pass the time. I cooked rich soups of dragonflies. I learned to aim an arrow through a devilhorse’s brain. 6 I sat alone by the water. They trusted me with the river. When United Fruit Company boats headed for port, upriver, I called out to sailors, down came stalks of bananas to snag and bring up to the batture. 7 When the polls opened until the polls closed two men dangled their rifles over their shoulders and pretended they couldn’t be seen. The men and women who came were embarrassed. They looked down at the white glare of crushed shells at their feet. They looked off into the distance. 8 In the hot sun on the wooden platform I stood waiting for the icehouse doors to open. I wanted to be asked inside the cool bricks of smoking water, frozen and squared in fifty-pound blocks, rattling along belts of silver rollers. I wanted to be cool and dry. 9 The women were left locked in the house. The rifle’s blue-black barrel shone in the corner against the white, white wall. Somewhere in the swamps around us a man threw himself against the dark. I couldn’t understand why our lights were on. I wondered if he would drown. 10 I was afraid of the iridescent algae pool, hit with glaze after an afternoon storm, lifted like a giant keyhole, lit by the great green eyeball behind it, watching me, watching me turn away, watching me look back, watching me, for all I knew, catch my breath, not wanting to give it back. 11 We walked into the parking lot after 10 o’clock mass on Sunday. A car’s blur crossed our path so close I felt the heat of the sun in the hot wind off its fender. They only meant to scare us. I felt then what my prayers might have been. 12 That afternoon someone decided to slaughter the rabbits. They held the scruffs of their necks, whacked their soft brown crowns with cracked baseball bats. Each one bled through the nose. We fed their guts to the alligator by the shed in the deep, deep hole. 13 I watched them kissing, kissing in sorrow, in the sitting rooms in the funeral parlor. They were drinking cafe au lait and eating ham sandwiches. Yes, there were so many flowers. I didn’t want to be kissed in sorrow. I didn’t want to be patted or pitied. 14 The squeak and thump and mist of flit as someone pumped sprays of insecticide. It fell over my face, like a blessing, like a tingling sensation in my fingers, like a thousand evaporating lessons, it fell on the oil lamp’s wick. The flame danced. It wobbled, dipped and brightened.

After George Herbert This tiny ruin in my eye, small flaw in the fabric, little speck of blood in the egg, deep chip in the windshield, north star, polestar, floater that doesn't float, spot where my hand is not, even when I'm looking at my hand, little piton that nails every rock I see, no matter if the picture turns to sand, or sand to sea, I embrace you, piece of absence that reminds me what I will be, all dark some day unless God rescues me, oh speck that might teach me yet to see.

Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep, And can't tell where to find them; Leave them alone, and they'll come home, Bringing their tails behind them. Little Bo-Peep fell fast asleep, And dreamt she heard them bleating; But when she awoke, she found it a joke, For they were still all fleeting. Then up she took her little crook, Determined for to find them; She found them indeed, but it made her heart bleed, For they'd left their tails behind them. It happened one day, as Bo-Peep did stray Into a meadow hard by, There she espied their tails, side by side, All hung on a tree to dry. She heaved a sigh and wiped her eye, And over the hillocks she raced; And tried what she could, as a shepherdess should, That each tail be properly placed.

Little Box talks back With a new set of teeth And pink gums A fake nose and a wax mustache She disguises her voice To sound like Groucho • Little Box opens up And cries to her psychiatrist I don’t know why they hate me I’m such a sweetheart I volunteer at the zoo And teach Mandarin To their bratty children

Little Boy Blue, please cover your nose. You sneezed on Miss Muffet and ruined her clothes. You sprayed Mother Hubbard, and now she is sick. You put out the fire on Jack’s candlestick. Your sneeze is the reason why Humpty fell down. You drenched Yankee Doodle when he came to town. The blind mice are angry! The sheep are upset! From now on use tissues so no one gets wet!

Father, father, where are you going O do not walk so fast. Speak father, speak to your little boy Or else I shall be lost, The night was dark no father was there The child was wet with dew. The mire was deep, & the child did weep And away the vapour flew.

Little brown baby wif spa'klin' eyes, Come to yo' pappy an' set on his knee. What you been doin', suh — makin' san' pies? Look at dat bib — you's es du'ty ez me. Look at dat mouf — dat's merlasses, I bet; Come hyeah, Maria, an' wipe off his han's. Bees gwine to ketch you an' eat you up yit, Bein' so sticky an sweet — goodness lan's! Little brown baby wif spa'klin' eyes, Who's pappy's darlin' an' who's pappy's chile? Who is it all de day nevah once tries Fu' to be cross, er once loses dat smile? Whah did you git dem teef? My, you's a scamp! Whah did dat dimple come f'om in yo' chin? Pappy do' know you — I b'lieves you's a tramp; Mammy, dis hyeah's some ol' straggler got in! Let's th'ow him outen de do' in de san', We do' want stragglers a-layin' 'roun' hyeah; Let's gin him 'way to de big buggah-man; I know he's hidin' erroun' hyeah right neah. Buggah-man, buggah-man, come in de do', Hyeah's a bad boy you kin have fu' to eat. Mammy an' pappy do' want him no mo', Swaller him down f'om his haid to his feet! Dah, now, I t'ought dat you'd hug me up close. Go back, ol' buggah, you sha'n't have dis boy. He ain't no tramp, ner no straggler, of co'se; He's pappy's pa'dner an' play-mate an' joy. Come to you' pallet now — go to yo' res'; Wisht you could allus know ease an' cleah skies; Wisht you could stay jes' a chile on my breas'— Little brown baby wif spa'klin' eyes!

I've always wanted to play the part of that puckish pubescent Filipino boy in those John Wayne Pacific-War movies. Pepe, Jose, or Juanito would be smiling, bare-chested and eager to please for most of the steamy jungle scenes. I'd be the one who would cross the Japanese lines and ask for tanks, air support, or more men. I'd miraculously make it back to the town where John Wayne is holding his position against the enemy with his Thompson machine-gun. As a reward, he'd rub that big white hand on my head and he'd promise to let me clean his Tommy gun by the end of the night. But then, a Betty Grable look-a-like love interest would divert him by sobbing into his shoulder, saying how awfully scared she is about what the "Japs" would do to her if she were captured. In one swift motion, John Wayne would sweep her off her feet to calm her fears inside his private quarters. Because of my Hollywood ability to be anywhere, I'd be under the bed watching the woman roll down her stockings as my American hero unbuckles his belt I'd feel the bottom of the bed bounce off my chest as small-arms fire explodes outside the walls.

A little called anything shows shudders. Come and say what prints all day. A whole few watermelon. There is no pope. No cut in pennies and little dressing and choose wide soles and little spats really little spices. A little lace makes boils. This is not true. Gracious of gracious and a stamp a blue green white bow a blue green lean, lean on the top. If it is absurd then it is leadish and nearly set in where there is a tight head. A peaceful life to arise her, noon and moon and moon. A letter a cold sleeve a blanket a shaving house and nearly the best and regular window. Nearer in fairy sea, nearer and farther, show white has lime in sight, show a stitch of ten. Count, count more so that thicker and thicker is leaning. I hope she has her cow. Bidding a wedding, widening received treading, little leading mention nothing. Cough out cough out in the leather and really feather it is not for. Please could, please could, jam it not plus more sit in when.