Does Your House Have Lions ? Quotes

“i was a southern Negro man playing music
married to a high yellow woman who loved my unheard
face, who slept with me in nordic
beauty.”
― Sonia Sanchez, Does Your House Have Lions ?

“i did not want to leave you son, this flame
this pecan-colored festival requested me”
― Sonia Sanchez, Does Your House Have Lions ?

“this father always a guest
never a permanent resident of my veins
always a traveler to other terrains.”
― Sonia Sanchez, Does Your House Have Lions ?

“let his final days be a monotone
no cuttings no more stabbings of arms and legs
no resident tubes to collect these final dregs.”
― Sonia Sanchez, Does Your House Have Lions ?

“mothermothermother
dead when i was one
stepmotherstepmotherstepmother
alive with overdone”
― Sonia Sanchez, Does Your House Have Lions ?

“i am here my baby in your hospital room
i am here my love i have kissed your morning breath
i have walked around your father's gloom
i have come straight to see you grazing near death”
― Sonia Sanchez, Does Your House Have Lions ?

“the sea opens and shuts with our grief”
― Sonia Sanchez, Does Your House Have Lions ?

“where to go?
where to go today?
where to have gone at some ago
time when he was at play
in the world?”
― Sonia Sanchez, Does Your House Have Lions ?

“the doctors wait for me at every corner they arrive
with stationary voices tracking the sweat-hive
of his body embroidering needles on his veins
i pray his corpuscles learn how to abstain.”
― Sonia Sanchez, Does Your House Have Lions ?

“i have entered this hospital to rest
and all i have discovered is unrest”
― Sonia Sanchez, Does Your House Have Lions ?

“i worship the light of the timid ground
i walk wide-eyed through blue slits of sound.”
― Sonia Sanchez, Does Your House Have Lions ?

“what terror slows your journey to this dawn?”
― Sonia Sanchez, Does Your House Have Lions ?

“do you remember me, ayyyyyy?
when our wombs were cerebral, ayyyyyy?”
― Sonia Sanchez, Does Your House Have Lions ?

“i am wealthy my limbs free of moths”
― Sonia Sanchez, Does Your House Have Lions ?

“how to learn to love me amid all the pain?”
― Sonia Sanchez, Does Your House Have Lions ?

“came the summer of nineteen sixty
harlem luxuriating in Malcolm's voice
became Big Red beautiful became a city
of magnificent Black Birds steel eyes moist
as he insinuated his words of sweet choice
while politicians complained about this racist
this alchemist. this strategist. this purist.”
― Sonia Sanchez, Does Your House Have Lions ?

“and we waited for the anger to retreat
and we watched him embrace the city and the street.”
― Sonia Sanchez, Does Your House Have Lions ?