I've been immersed in a mind-bending book by Alabama-born author and poet, Minnie Bruce Pratt. Titled, s/he, the book explores her life as a fe/male and poet and mother and partner. It is beautiful, heart-wrenching, bone-on-bone stuff. I am so grateful to have discovered her. And for the way in which she expands my love for life and all the variants of the lives we try to lead.
Pratt has two sons from a prior marriage to poet Marvin E. Weaver II which ended in divorce in North Carolina in 1975. She lost custody of her children because the state criminalised homosexual activity at the time.
Without further ado, here is...
Elbows
Cover your arms.
Don’t let your elbows
show.
That’s what my neighbors
down in Alabama tell
their daughters
so no elbow
plump or thin
tan or pink
will entice others
to passion.
But if I thought
my scrawny, two-toned
elbows would lure you
if I thought
my skinny, sharp-boned
elbows could secure you
I’d flap my arms
like a chicken
like a pea-fowl
like a guinea hen
when next I saw you
honey
I’d roll
up my sleeves and
sin
sin
sin.
