Autobiography of a Goddess
Autobiography of a Goddess
Emerging
from the head of a god?
fully formed from the sea?
No, falling
from a Cap-Haïtien mango tree
a suckling, nourishing on sugarcane.
Departing,
same hemisphere, new city.
an undocumented body
in the elementary factory
assembly line.
Discovering language
weaving tales like Scheherazade
not to defer death
but to invent myself.
Divine, gifted and black
Walking,
through a metropolitan labyrinth
searching for my matrilineal lineage.
Exhausted,
from the fruitless, quixotic attempts
to distill segments of my soul
to bottle the darkness.
Have you ever seen a goddess weep?
Jackie O shades, Conceal.
Even a goddess’s heart can be broken.
Possessed
Of all my powers
to conceive, to nurture, to weep
to think, to love, to forgive
to be detached—self-actualized
to accept being both the sheep
and the wolf.
Determined, gifted and black
there is a room for me
in the ivory tower.
Cognizant,
that hubris
is my constant companion.
Awaiting the classic end.
copyright by Sherley Jean-Pierre
iamsherleyfierce 