In Black Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCD EFGH IJHF KLHM NOPQ RSTU VWJXQ| The image that haunts me is not beautiful | A |
| I do not think it will open into a field | B |
| of wildflowers I doubt that it will take | C |
| wing suddenly startling us into admiration | D |
| - | |
| It is one of those brutish facts of life | E |
| the awkward nakedness of the memory when | F |
| it takes off its clothes and crawls | G |
| between the top and bottom sheet Or rather | H |
| - | |
| It is my mother's memory that I carry | I |
| pressed into my own how at her grandfather's | J |
| funeral his daughter my mother's mother | H |
| stood at an open door and cried and then | F |
| - | |
| The blood ran down her legs gushing from | K |
| the womb where thirteen children had nestled | L |
| and now at once horrified and at ease with her | H |
| body's impropriety they gathered all around | M |
| - | |
| This was the grandmother who lost three of those | N |
| thirteen who hung a million baskets of wash | O |
| who peeled a million potatoes and splattered | P |
| her arms with the grease of constant cooking | Q |
| - | |
| This was my grandmother who kept chickens | R |
| who left her voice in the throats of all my aunts | S |
| and was struck down in the cellar legs twisted | T |
| beneath the fall and half her face stiffened | U |
| - | |
| Helpless until they found her the jar | V |
| of canned fruit smashed on the cement | W |
| And then at her funeral I saw my mother's | J |
| tears gliding ahead of me in a black limousine | X |
| a procession not beautiful but haunting | Q |
Joyce Sutphen
(1)
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