Her Hips
by Lenora Rain-Lee Good

I want Lucille’s hips.
Hers were magnificent!
How do I know
since we never met?
She wrote an ode to them.

You don’t write odes
to commemorate
the mediocre. You write
odes to commemorate
the utterly fantastic,
the most wonderful ever,
the absolute crème de la crème.

Her hips moved.
Mine, several years
older than hers
also move, albeit
with due deliberation and
some amount of pain.

Her hips enraptured.
Mine barely exist,
are barely seen,
not enough, as my
dearly beloved ex said,
to make a sick man
a sandwich.

I want Lucille’s talent,
her ability to poeticize her world.
But I really, Really, REALLY
want her hips!

After Lucille Clifton

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