The architecture of the soul runs adjacent to the body,
lies in the hand of the maker.
And the maker lies in the hand.
Like Leon’s hands that never held me until I was twenty-six.
Like my hands, a creator’s hands,
architect of my image,
my father and I workers in our own right,
being made by our own making.

The architecture of the soul runs adjacent to the body,
lies in the hand of the maker.
And the maker lies in the hand.
This is what Leon and I decided.
This is Hammonds’ wisdom.
We spoke about a black woman’s womanhood
being beside herself,
being alien and secret,
even to herself.

Leon said, Because black women have a different gender than other women.
And I said, Yes.

Leon doesn’t understand why womanhood is not my companion.
That I am alien to it as much as it is to
America.

Black women are the other from the other,
the forgotten seed in a field of sugarcane,
growth self-determined,
taking what water we can,
taking the sunlight,
lifting our faces upward,
sweet and steadfast.

I am not a woman, but I understand them.
I am not a woman, but I love them.