“…we have always been the duppy we fear.”

— Madwoman: poems, Shara McCallum

 

In the short border of dusk, and then dawn, 

people don’t want to see it for its own truth

or their own truth or truth at all.

Mirrors, selfies, cousins, glossy self-help pages,

plain as the skin and veins on their hands. 

You stand wondering why they can’t all 

understand when you don’t know 

you don’t understand yourself.

It’s like raking leaves every day 

when you don’t even have trees,

your back to your neighbor’s grove

of maples.