[poets in their bassinets]

poets in their bassinets 
dream a splendid woman holding over their baby eyes 
a globe, shining with 
possibility.    someone, 
she smiles, has to see this  
and report it, and they 
in their innocence 
believing that all will be 
as beautiful as she is, 
whimper     use me, use me 
and oh how terrifying 
that she does.

Copyright © 2024 by Lucille Clifton. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 13, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets. 

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“‘I don’t write out of what I know; I write out of what I wonder. Poetry and art are not about answers to me; they are about questions.’
—Lucille Clifton. 

My mother ‘poemed’ out of wonder: ‘Why this or that?’  ‘How so?’  and ‘What if?’  She was accepting of answers that were both glorious and terrifying. Lucille wondered about all life, all lives—past, present, future, but most meticulously her own. 

This poem is Lucille’s description of the soul-deep covenant between poets and poetry.”
—Sidney Clifton