Voices from the fringes: A gift for grateful beggars

Welp, it’s April, so you know what that means. Yes—a poem a day for National Poetry Month.

Thinking about this during the past month, it occurred to me that in years past, pretty much all the poems have been from majority poets. That is, even when I gave you African or Chinese or Greek or Persian writers, they were from the dominant culture within their nation. And while I tried to scatter women and non-binary among the males, it was really a smattering.

After the year of Black Lives Matter and the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes, I think it’s time for me to find voices from the fringes.

We heard from Audre Lorde three years ago, but she’s back to frame the month for us. The woman basically defined intersectional—Black, female, child of immigrants, lesbian, mother, activist, wife; a lot of boxes to tick for person who defied boxes. We’re having her “New Year’s Day”, because the last line is a corker.

“New Year’s Day”

The day feels put together hastily
like a gift for grateful beggars
being better than no time at all
but the bells are ringing
in cities I have never visited
and my name is printed over doorways
I have never seen
While extracting a bone
or whatever is tender or fruitful
from the core of indifferent days
I have forgotten
the touch of sun
cutting through uncommitted mornings
The night is full of messages
I cannot read
I am too busy forgetting
air like fur on my tongue
and these tears
which do not come from sadness
but from grit in a sometimes wind

Rain falls like tar on my skin
my son picks up a chicken heart at dinner
asking
does this thing love?
Deft unmalicious fingers of ghosts
pluck over my dreaming
hiding whatever it is of sorrow
that would profit me

I am deliberate
and afraid
of nothing.