Legacy

Sixth of a set of eight poems

Legacy

I fear being
like these women,
my mother's sisters
large, bitter
blue-eyed old women

You know,
women we don't put in our poetry.
Am I the only one
with such a legacy
of hate?

Am I the only Black woman who has spent fifty years
recovering from a legacy
of powerlessness?

Am I the only Black woman
whose mother was physically abused?

Where are the books,
the poems,
the stories,
of my sisters?