Photograph of Audre Lorde, Staten Island, NY, by Robert Giard. 1978. From NYPL Digital Images Collection (public domain)
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 day.
* * *
I am deliberate
and afraid
of nothing.
From Audre Lorde, A Land Where Other People Live (1973)
