Phillis
Wheatley, did you count on your fingers
the number of
times the oars stroked the water
when you first
left home and thought about how
the sky was
coloring pink and gold sheep
in the clouds
at sunset while apples ripened
in orchards
where birds pecked and scolded each
other between
beakfuls of yellow fruit with strips
of red skin
dripping juice that ants sensed
in immediate
distress as it fell upon their front
stoop mobilizing them to collect every drop of
sticky
goo the way
Simone de Beauvoir recounted her stories
from
childhood of how women were silenced
into shadows of
men, a gap between words yet
the babbling
source of gossip and giggles teaching
children to
read and to write and how to be civil
when the value
of their own humanity remained
safely sealed
in the womb of being and nothingness
vanished into
smoke rings from Gitanes smoked
in cafés near
the Seine?
French café society, photo by André Kertész. Paris, 1920
