(for Sally Sellers)



Like a fading piece of cloth

I am a failure



No longer do I cover tables filled with food and laughter

My seams are frayed my hems falling my strength no longer able

To hold the hot and cold



I wish for those first days

When just woven I could keep water

From seeping through

Repelled stains with the tightness of my weave

Dazzled the sunlight with my

Reflection



I grow old though pleased with my memories

The tasks I can no longer complete

Are balanced by the love of the tasks gone past



I offer no apology only

this plea:



When I am frayed and strained and drizzle at the end

Please someone cut a square and put me in a quilt

That I might keep some child warm



And some old person with no one else to talk to

Will hear my whispers



And cuddle

near




Copyright © Nikki Giovanni. From the Visual Verse Project. Used with permission of the author.

Backing out the driveway

the car lights cast an eerie glow

in the morning fog centering

on movement in the rain slick street



Hitting brakes I anticipate a squirrel or a cat or sometimes

a little raccoon

I once braked for a blind little mole who try though he did

could not escape the cat toying with his life

Mother-to-be possum occasionally lopes home . . . being

naturally . . . slow her condition makes her even more ginger



We need a sign POSSUM CROSSING to warn coffee-gurgling neighbors:

we share the streets with more than trucks and vans and

railroad crossings



All birds being the living kin of dinosaurs

think themselves invincible and pay no heed

to the rolling wheels while they dine

on an unlucky rabbit



I hit brakes for the flutter of the lights hoping it's not a deer

or a skunk or a groundhog

coffee splashes over the cup which I quickly put away from me

and into the empty passenger seat

I look . . .

relieved and exasperated ...

to discover I have just missed a big wet leaf

struggling . . . to lift itself into the wind

and live




From Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea by Nikki Giovanni. Copyright © 2003 by Nikki Giovanni. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins. All rights reserved.

This is my first memory:
A big room with heavy wooden tables that sat on a creaky
wood floor
A line of green shades—bankers’ lights—down the center
Heavy oak chairs that were too low or maybe I was simply
too short
For me to sit in and read
So my first book was always big

In the foyer up four steps a semi-circle desk presided
To the left side the card catalogue
On the right newspapers draped over what looked like
a quilt rack
Magazines face out from the wall

The welcoming smile of my librarian
The anticipation in my heart
All those books—another world—just waiting
At my fingertips.




From Acolytes by Nikki Giovanni. Copyright © 2007 by Nikki Giovanni. Published by arrangement with William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.