Toi Derricotte
Souvenir

She bought

an African gold weight—half

the size of her thumb (typically

various sexual poses—this one,

doggie style), and pointed out

that the woman

was being raped.  How can you tell?

Because his little hand (perfectly

formed, each finger

small as a letter

in a book) is

over her mouth.

 

 

 
Found In Volume 47, No. 02
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Toi Derricotte
About the Author

Recipient of the Academy of American Poets’ 2021 Wallace Stevens Award and the Poetry Society’s 2020 Frost Medal for distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry, Toi Derricotte is the author of 2019 National Book Awards Finalist I: New & Selected Poems (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019), The Undertaker’s Daughter (2011), and four earlier collections of poetry, including Tender, winner of the 1998 Paterson Poetry Prize. Her literary memoir, The Black Notebooks, received the 1998 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Non-Fiction and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.