brown girl

love you for your brownness
And the rounded darkness of your breast
I love you for the breaking sadness in your voice
And shadows where your wayward eye-lids rest.

Something of old forgotten queens
Lurks in the lithe abandon of your walk
And something of the shackled slave
Sobs in the rhythm of your talk

Oh, little brown girl, born for sorrow’s mate
Keep all you have of queenliness
Forgetting that you were once were slave
And let your full lips laugh at Fate!