Sometimes others' fingers on computer keys
sound like rushing water, and when I am
just so thirsty in the middle of the night
that waking from dreams of waterfalls
at the academic library... where I still go
because it's okay to think there... is mandated,
shuffling bedward with a plastic sports cup
full of iciness makes it better to be awake,
reading at 3:30am the tales and essays
of Black feminists and the dark divine
and remembering all that fire, rage, amid
happiness of Furies -- the tools of learning
in sisterhood that even I might have some
purpose, a contribution -- yet I have to
return this book tomorrow, and no womanist
power on Earth or in dream can save this
bookworm from late fees or the imagined
humiliation of permanently revoked privilege.
