the lost baby poem -- Lucille Clifton

Guest poem sent in by Rachel W.W. Granfield

(Poem #1246) the lost baby poem the time i dropped your almost body down down to meet the waters under the city and run one with the sewage into the sea what did i know about waters rushing back what did i know about drowning or being drowned you would have been born into winter in the year of the disconnected gas and no car we would have made the thin walk over genesee hill into the canada wind to watch you slip like ice into strangers' hands you would have fallen naked as snow into winter if you were here i could tell you these and some other things if i am ever less than a mountain for your definite brothers and sisters let the rivers pour over my head let the sea take me for a spiller of seas let black men call me stranger always for your never named sake -- Lucille Clifton

[notes]

Lucille Clifton read at my high school in 1993, and ten years later I
still remember her inflection when reading her work.  This is not one
of the ones she read that night, but (after much time spent reading
through what I own of her work) I decided to send it in because of its
influence on another artist, the singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco, with
whose music I became familiar around this time as well.  "Lost Woman
Song," on DiFranco's debut album (which she released at the age of
nineteen), is dedicated to Clifton.

"lost woman song" by Ani DiFranco

-for lucille clifton

i opened a bank account
when i was nine years old
i closed it when i was eighteen
i gave them every penny that i'd saved
and they gave my blood
and my urine
a number
now i'm sitting in this waiting room
playing with the toys
and i am here to exercise
my freedom of choice
i passed their handheld signs
went through their picket lines
they gathered when they saw me coming
they shouted when they saw me cross
i said why don't you go home
just leave me alone
i'm just another woman lost
you are like fish in the water
who don't know that they are wet
as far as i can tell
the world isn't perfect yet
his bored eyes were obscene
on his denim thighs a magazine
i wish he'd never come here with me
in fact i wish he'd never come near me
i wish his shoulder
wasn't touching mine
i am growing older
waiting in this line
some of life's best lessons
are learned at the worst times
under the fierce fluorescent
she offered her hand for me to hold
she offered stability and calm
and i was crushing her palm
through the pinch pull wincing
my smile unconvincing
on that sterile battlefield that sees
only casualties
never heroes
my heart hit absolute zero
lucille, your voice still sounds in me
mine was a relatively easy tragedy
now the profile of our country
looks a little less hard nosed
but that picket line persisted
and that clinic's since been closed
they keep pounding their fists on reality
hoping it will break
but i don't think there's a one of them
leads a life free of mistakes

[biographical information]

Information on Clifton's life is here
([broken link] http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?45442B7C000C0E05); the site also
includes a few of her other poems ("Homage to My Hips" is one of my
favorites).  Ani DiFranco fansites are legion, but this one
([broken link] http://www.ani-difranco.net/) has good information, including bio,
lyrics, etc.