ChickenBones: A Journal
for Literary & Artistic African-American Themes
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Sometimes what / we want is the / taste of the kiss
and the touch of / a hand
Books by E. Ethelbert Miller
How We Sleep on the Nights We Don’t Make Love / Fathering Words / In Search of Color Everywhere
First Light: New and Selected Poems / Where are the Love Poems for Dictators? / Whispers, Secrets and Promises
Beyond The Frontier: African-American Poetry for the 21st Century / Season of Hunger/Cry of Rain
Synergy: An Anthology of Washington D.C. Black Poetry
* * * * *
In Shadows There Are Men
By E. Ethelbert Miller
We were never absent
or invisible
we were always here
Our lives interrupted
by what others
wanted to see
Sometimes what
we want is the
taste of the kiss
and the touch of
a hand
Even our women
stare at us
disgusted with how
we live
Never knowing
how we struggle
to love
update 2 August 2008
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