“Aubade” by Camille Rankine

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend April 19, 2017   Aubade   Camille Rankine

They say brave but I don't want it. Who will we mourn today. Or won't we.   Black all the windows. Lower down the afternoon. I barricade   all my belonging. I am mostly never real American or anything   availing. But I do take. And take what's given. The smell of blood.   I breathe it in. The dirt so thick with our good fortune. And who pays for it. And what am I   but fear, but wanting. I'll bite the feeding hand until I'm fed   and buried. In the shining day. All deadly good   intentions. A catalogue of virtues. This is how I'll disappear.            Copyright © 2017 Camille Rankine. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "I wrote this poem at a time when our country's characteristic brutality (and racism and misogyny and bigotry) was displaying itself with relentless frequency, and we were constantly being asked to be brave, or being lauded for our bravery. When I say 'we,' I suppose I mean black women. It's not just us, but that's the we that I especially belong to. Black women are expected to be strong always, and we so often are. But isn't that exhausting. I was tired, I think, when I wrote this." —Camille Rankine   Camille Rankine is the author of Incorrect Merciful Impulses (Copper Canyon Press, 2016). She teaches at Brown University and Columbia University and lives in New York City. Poetry by Rankine   Incorrect Merciful Impulses (Copper Canyon Press, 2016) "Nearing Dawn" by Jorie Graham "sisters" by Lucille Clifton "Sci-Fi" by Tracy K. Smith Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. If you enjoy Poem-a-Day, please consider making a donation to help make it possible. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038

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