Literary Hub

“climbing”

A Poem by Lucille Clifton

June 26, 2020

a woman precedes me up the long rope,
her dangling braids the color of rain.
maybe I should have had braids.
maybe I should have kept the body I started,
slim and possible as a boy’s bone.
maybe I should have wanted less.
maybe I should have ignored the bowl in me
burning to be filled.
maybe I should have wanted less.
the woman passes the notch in the rope
marked Sixty. i rise toward it, struggling
hand over hungry hand.

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From Book of Light by Lucille Clifton. Used with permission from Copper Canyon Press. 2020.

Lucille Clifton

Lucille Clifton was born in Depew, New York in 1936, and educated at the State University of New York at Fredonia and at Howard University. She was the Distinguished Professor of Humanities at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and a professor of English at Duke University. Her awards included the National Book Award, the Juniper Prize for Poetry, an Emmy Award, and two nominations for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.