“the times,” by Lucille Clifton

Today’s poem catches itself relieved that they are white.

I read “the times” from a little notebook I kept in the early aughts into which I used to cut and paste–with actual scissors and real rubber cement–poems I wished that I had written. You can find and buy it in Clifton’s Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000 (BOA Editions, 2000).