[if mama / could see]

By Lucille Clifton 1936–2010 Lucille Clifton

if mama

could see

she would see

lucy sprawling

limbs of lucy

decorating the

backs of chairs

lucy hair

holding the mirrors up

that reflect odd

aspects of lucy.

if mama

could hear

she would hear

lucysong rolled in the

corners like lint

exotic webs of lucysighs

long lucy spiders explaining

to obscure gods.

if mama

could talk

she would talk

good girl

clean up your room.

Lucille Clifton, “[if mama/could see]” from Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir, 1969-1980. Copyright ©1987 by Lucille Clifton. Reprinted with the permission of BOA Editions Ltd., www.boaeditions.org.

Source: The Norton Anthology of African American Literature (1997)

Biography

A prolific and widely respected poet, Lucille Clifton's work emphasizes endurance and strength through adversity, focusing particularly on African-American experience and family life. Awarding the prestigious Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize to Clifton in 2007, the judges remarked that “One always feels the looming humaneness around Lucille Clifton’s poems—it is a moral quality that some poets have and some don’t.” In addition to the . . .

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