I WHISPER INTO HIS MOUTH OUR NAMES

I WHISPER INTO HIS MOUTH OUR NAMESSpending the morning with the great American poet, Lucille Clifton and her deeply radical poems. I love this retelling of the Adam and Eve story – Adam, slow and unformed and Eve, who names creation, awaits her ‘clay two-foot’ to awaken fully into the world. Wonderful! Love Susie. x


adam thinking


she

stolen from my bone

is it any wonder

i hunger to tunnel back

inside desperate

to reconnect the rib and clay

and to be whole again


some need is in me

struggling to roar through my

mouth into a name

this creation is so fierce

i would rather have been born


eve thinking


it is wild country here

brothers and sisters coupling

claw and wing

groping one another


i wait

while the clay two-foot

rumbles in his chest

searching for language to


call me

but he is slow

tonight as he sleeps

i will whisper into his mouth

our names


by Lucille Clifton