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The Illusion of Hips

Vandal Poem of the Day: March 31, 2018

by Mitchell L.H. Douglas

after Lucille Clifton

Caught in the angle of sun & slight breeze, her skirt, melon, balloons. This, she says, is for the illusion of hips, but she needs nothing to make her more. Petal & stem, hair like a crown of baby’s breath falling to her shoulders, sweet rain. Born in Buffalo, she studied @ the same high school as Ms. Lucille, which tells me she could be a poet by osmosis, a good one even (something in the water). Please forgive me, I am trying to describe beauty, inner & outer, & isn’t that always the trouble: the risk of walking in stale words? I am trying not to be that poet, I am trying to impart honor, & I will be successful when I mention that after talking about the hips she doesn’t have, she smiles like a new world, & you nod your head know exactly what I mean.

from dying in the scarecrow’s armsFind it in the library

Copyright © Persea Books 2018
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of Persea Books.

Published in Mitchel L.H. Douglas Poems

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Idaho Humanities Council, a State-based program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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