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Do
I want to look like this? Women
with
that playfulness in their faces, not
childish,
but elfin, magic, as if they have learned
how
to shift the world, slightly, and let it
slide
down the ice of its own melting
. . . Women
who
have been lost but have not
hidden;
clear-skinned,
wide-awake,
their unmade selves
not
genderless, but not fixed. I
don't know where
their
genitals are. If
heart
is
the center, do they feel the tug
of
longing there? What
blossoms?
Where?
In the brain? Belly button?
between
the thighs? Is the
clitoris throbbing?
Toi Derricotte has published four
books of poetry, and a memoir, the Black
Notebooks, which was a New York
Times notable book of the year.
Her latest
poetry book, Tender, won the
Paterson Poetry Prize. She
teaches in the MFA
Program at the University of
Pittsburgh and is co-founder of Cave Canem, the
historic first workshop retreat
for African American poets.
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