You Have

You have not written 
the best-seller.

You have not given

your Tony Award

acceptance speech for

Best Actress in a Musical.

You are not the latter-day

Ida B. Wells

(though in your heart you are).

Stevie Wonder did not

sing at your wedding.

You do not regularly have

deep conversations

with your best friend

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

You don’t walk the halls

of the academy waxing

wise and funny.

But you have dreamed anyway.

You have laughed in your sleep.

You have sung through tears.

You have danced with your sister.

You have giggled with three-year-olds.

You have rolled in the grass.

You have heard Daddy recite Dunbar

and Ma’s rich alto/tenor render

Jesus knows, Jesus cares.

You have been held in strong arms.

You have inhaled the soft

sweetness of Johnson’s baby powder

on baby brothers’

smoothbrown bellies,

and have chased their happy

short legs down hallways.

Loving eyes have smiled at you.

You have counted stars.

© Avis Matthews