The Clitoris

Nikky Finney

is 9 cm deep in the pelvis.

Most of it scrunched & hidden.

New studies show the shy curl to be longer than the penis, but like Africa, the continent, it is never drawn to size.

Mapmakers, and others, who draw important things for a living, do not want us to know this.

In some females, the clitoris stretches, unfurls, 8 in, with 2 to 3.5 in, shaft free, outside the body.

The longest clitoris of record Has been found in the blue whale.

In water desire can rise, honor sea levels, ignore land-locked cartographers.

In water, desire refuses retreat.

Copyright © by Nikki Finney, 2011

Haint

Teri Cross Davis no amount of di hemorrhaging a could’ve erased the pulp of your made with the s of a still forming science tells me you are still whi inside my bones that years from cut me to the m and microscope the rings of your no matter the in coupling of timi even now when disappoints our do you still cling to let another ca home?

Haint Copyright © by Terri Ellen Cross Davis, 2016

Poem In Praise Of Menstruation

lucille clifton

if there is a river more beautiful than this bright as the blood red edge of the moon if there is a river more faithful than this returning each month to the same delta if there is a river braver than this coming and coming in a surge of passion, of pain if there is a river more ancient than this daughter of eve mother of cain and of abel if there is in the universe such a river if there is some where water more powerful than this wild water pray that it flows also through animals beautiful and faithful and ancient and female and brave from The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton: 1965-2010

Copyright © BOA Editions, Ltd 2012

Out in the Country of My Country (Peterborough, New Hampshire)

June Jordan

Filing my eyes with flowers of no name that I can call aloud: This northernmost retreat of white pine or aching birch of meadow mouth opening the body of a perf l d that throws away birdsong on the rushes of hard rain

Testing my heart with precipice and crest accumulating timber trails or fern beside the mica sparkling road that peaks at mountain heights of granite situated next to purple lilac feeling out the light of short cold days

Choosing my mind between mosquitos and the moon that dominates a darkness larger than the stars close by: I (what do you suppose)

I battle with the spirits of a winterkill that spoils the summer berries: Blunts the nipple points of love

Chasing my face among the displacements of a stream I behold the Indian: I become the slave again I am hunting/ I am the hunted in these snowy woods again I am the eagle/I am scrambling on the summit rocks I slip I scream I soar I seek the dancing of the spirits from the grave from Directed by Desire

Still I Rise

Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard

You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.