And this is after Gwendolyn Brooks's poem
"An Old Black Woman, Homeless and Indistinct."
"Necessarily."
"She's got a 102 temperature, delivery room nurses said.
You're going to live, though, long enough
to know you're going to go as quickly as you came,
going to make your mother swear by you,
going to shake your Bible with red-tipped nails
before you vanish into Chicago South Side skies that bleed not
like watercolor, not like a wound, not
like a fat, bitten plum, not necessarily, no, not
necessarily, nothing that precious or predictable.
Speak nicely to others, and they will nicely speak to you,
your mother said.
No, not so, you said, fairly close to the end.
No time to wait for mother's ride home
or for saviors coming soon.
You're going to vanish, not necessarily nicely, fairly
soon."