I'd like to do just a couple more.
I would say I have five grandchildren from 23 to one.
Oh, no, 25.
The eldest is 25.
And I can't get over the I have a grandchild 25.
I mean I couldn't get over when I had a child 25.
I had six children in six-and-a-half years, and yes,
I know about the pill.
I once lived next door to the president of Planned Parenthood
of Maryland.
He hated me.
He hated to see me walk out of my door.
I once went to Planned Parenthood
for some kind of thing, and they said, "Oh, but Mrs. Clifton--
I had taken the test.
You know you're pregnant."
And I cried.
Once when I had my baby, who was the person who gave me
my transplanted kidney, and she was the one
I tried so hard to get rid of.
She wasn't going anywhere.
She still like that.
I promised her I would not fall in Tucson,
and by George, I have not.
Anyway, I come from interesting people,
and I am part of interesting people among my tribe.
This is called "Slave Ships".
I was saying to Frances I think that one of my pet peeves
is people who think that Africa is a country.
I have a friend who is a poet who got very upset because I
asked her if she had won a prize,
and I asked her how head the prize affected her?
What had she done?
She said, "Oh, Lucille, I visited so many countries:
France, Germany, Spain, Africa."
I like to help people.
I believe in justice.
I believe we all know the same kind of things.
And so I said, "Oh, but so and so, Africa
is a continent, not a country.
It's a place that has lots of countries on it."
And she was angry with me for saying that.
She thought I meant something I didn't mean.
A lot of Black people don't know that.
She hasn't spoken to me since, but I expect I think she will.
Anyway, I was reading about slave ships,
and we didn't book passage or anything.
Some guy put us on there and there we were.
And the names of the slave ships--
I am a sucker for names, and I wanted
to hear about the names of slave ships, anyway.
Floated like spoons into the belly of Jesus
where we lay for weeks, for months in the sweat
and stink of our own breathing.
Jesus, why do you not protect us?
Chained to the heart of the angel where the prayers
we never tell and hot and red is our bloody ankles.
Jesus, angel, can these be men who vomit us out from ships
called Jesus, angel, grace of God onto a heathen country?
Jesus, angel, ever again can this tongue speak?
Can these bones walk?
Grace of God, can this sin live?