prayer

By Lucille Clifton

lighten up

why is your hand
so heavy
on just poor
me?

answer

this is the stuff
i made the heroes
out of
all the saints
and prophets and things
had to come by
this

Lucille Clifton, “prayer” from The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton.
Copyright ©1991, 2000 by Lucille Clifton. Reprinted with the permission of the Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of BOA Editions Ltd., www.boaeditions.org.