I wanted to write some poems about when I was a girl.
I was born in '36, do the math.
And I was born in Depew, New York, which is near Buffalo.
Anybody here from Buffalo?
You can't get out.
Buffalo was the snow--
oh, somebody is from Buffalo right there?
there Oh!
You've heard about me.
I'm the Black person born in Depew.
[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
My brother is the other one.
And when I was a girl, I worked at--
I got my first job, full time job, I was 12.
And I used to work in Buffalo at the unemployment insurance.
They used to call me the Polish colored girl.
And I spoke Polish.
I understood Polish.
I don't know any of that.
That's all gone now.
And I was trying to be kind to people,
because they couldn't help not having a job.
But they had to feed their kids too.
At that time, the most money you got was $50.
How could we live on that?
How could they live on that?
And I was a proper college girl at that time.
Anyway, my birth family calls me Lu.
Other people call me Lucy.
And now, kids call me Lucille Clifton.
Lu, 1942.
What I know is this is called gravel.
You must not eat it, you must not throw it at your brother.
What I know is over there is our house.
Our sidewalk too.
There is no grass.
Grass is for the white folks section.
What I know is something is coming.
Mama calls it war, calls it change.
Mama loves me.
Daddy loves me too much.
What I know is this is in the middle.
I am in the middle.
Come in, come in, my momma calls.
You can't stay there forever.