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selected poems
I grow flowers in my hair
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I grow flowers in my hair
Because nothing else will grow there
Amidst my bush of coils,
Entangled with the thorns.
I tried before to plant tomato seeds.
I toiled the soil and lay a bed of leaves
But the seeds did not grow.
The roots would not catch.
I bore no fruit.
I could, I know,
Grow my fruit further below
Where they surely would sprout
But I know what becomes
The fruit of a black woman’s womb.
Cut out and shut down,
They become strange fruit.
Broke-back and crooked,
They are bloodied at the root.
Best not plant, best not sow.
Another will reap.
Crowned heavy with red petals
And sweet Argan oil,
Instead
I grow the flowers in my hair.
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