Impending Fate

            after Betye Saar's Black Girl's Window 

Artist: Betye Saar
b. July 30, 1926, Los Angeles, California 
Title:  Black Girl's Window
​Date: 1969
Click here for more information

​She listened for the bombs:
            palms clung to glass
            senses distressed
She waited for 
her black silhouette to erupt
            & the moment she could feel her ancestors
            praying all night       or
            chanting to the dead
She waited in grief’s circle
            in the center of her living room window
            losing America
            to the quietude
& what happens when the glass breaks?       
When something gets inside?
What happens when the rustic metaphors appear
            and her thoughts are grenades?
Shall she wait for the breath of hate to dance
down earth’s aisles?
she who has carried babies in her wounds
she who has lived on the planet of being
she who has remnants of the dead in her headwrap
she who has mourned suns       & endured the listening
She waits      I wait  
We know they’re coming