about this author
When I was white I was a man.
My hair was wavy and feathered.
I wore a cowboy hat. (It was
the Seventies. I was a stud.)
I went to bars and picked up girls.
I could have any one I saw.
They bought me drinks and I drank them
then took my favorites home to my
waterbed. I never doubted
this was me. (Even though I was
a small, black girl watching myself
over my shoulder.) I knew what
to whisper in a woman’s ear,
how to wear those bones under my skin,
and did not need to see my face
or recognize my own soft voice.
("One Black Girlhood", from Armor and Flesh)
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