I AM the nigger. Singer of songs, Dancer. . . Softer than fluff of cotton. . . Harder than dark earth

MY people are gray, pigeon gray, dawn gray, storm gray… I call them beautiful, and I wonder where they are going.

THE DOME of the capitol looks t… Out of haze over the sunset, Out of a smoke rose gold: One star shines over the sunset. Night takes the dome and the river…

THE LAW says you and I belong t… The law says you are mine and I a… And there are a million miles of w… Between the chair where you sit an… The law says two strangers shall e…

I AM the undertow Washing tides of power Battering the pillars

I HAVE love And a child, A banjo And shadows. (Losses of God,

YOUR western heads here cast on… You are the two that fade away tog… Partners in the mist. Lunging buffalo shoulder, Lean Indian face,

THE MILK drops on your chin, H… Must not interfere with the cranbe… Nor the sky winter blue of your ey… Let your mammy keep hands off the… This is a high holy spatter of whi…

The jaws of this man are bone of the Rocky Mountains, the Appalachians. The eyes of this man are chlorine of two sobbing oceans, Foam, salt, green, wind, the changing unknown. ...

GIVE me your anathema. Speak new damnations on my head. The evening mist in the hills is s… The boulders on the road say commu… The farm dogs look out of their ey…

YOUR white shoulders I remember And your shrug of laughter. Low laughter Shaken slow

I REMEMBER here by the fire, In the flickering reds and saffron… They came in a ramshackle tub, Pilgrims in tall hats, Pilgrims of iron jaws, 5

Band concert public square Nebraska city. Flowing and circling dresses, summer-white dresses. Faces, flesh tints flung like sprays of cherry blossoms. And gigglers, God knows, gigglers,...