After images by audre lorde biography

[start of track]

[Audre Lorde speaking]

This poem is dedicated to each of you and to Emmett Till, who I hope is a name that is familiar to at least some of you in this room of over five hundred women.

Afterimages

[pause]

However the image enters
its force remains
my eyes are
rockstrewn caves where dragonfish evolve
wild for life, relentless and acquisitive
learning to survive
where there is no food
my eyes are always hungry
and remembering
however the image enters
its force remains.
A white woman stands bereft and empty
a black boy hacked into a murderous lesson
recalled in me forever
like a lurch of earth on the edge of sleep
etched into my visions
food for dragonfish that learn
to live upon whatever they must eat
the fused images beneath my pain.

[pause]

The Pearl River floods through the streets of Jackson
A Mississippi summer televised.
Trapped houses kneel like sinners in the rain
a white woman climbs from her roof to a passing boat
her f