Wanda Coleman Mercurochrome: New Poems, Black Sparrow Press: Santa Rosa, 2001
Wanda Coleman
To an Interloper
you are a foreigner here. this is my skin.
it is made of wild Santa Anas raging through canyons
and is as thin as a saint's aura.
i wear the night in my hair, stars glistening there
like rhinestones in a net of back silken naps.
the heat that cracks and dries your consciousness
is my breath on my lover's chest. you have no claims here.
there is nothing for you to wax romantic about.
you know nothing. you've invested nothing.
heart sacrifice is the only sacrifice.
lean into the blade, if you're so brave.
no one survives here who still has a reason
~~
No Justice-Just Us (after Kenneth Patchen)
This year grave grass covers the innocent.
We stand now, and grieve;
the future stolen before our eyes; betting on
the state-run numbers racket; drinking sugarless java.
We have too much to do; nowhere and nobody's help.
Last year echoed the night before; a debt unpaid.
They called us 'old souls,' street-wise and cool.
We manage to maintain that look young women have;
Earthy hunger smolders behind our eyes and breasts.
We will probably shout & hallelujah when we die.
We were never accepted all the way-as whole women.
We are the insulted, sister, the desolate dames.
Dreamwalkers in a dark and terrible waking,
where the multitudes define us with dirty lies.
Cold points measure us, Lady
The cold points of the law