Magnetic attraction
My fingers hover
poised over the paper with purpose

Praise the woman
Who, like Enheduanna,
loves the smell of concentration
Who writes
As if walking around a wall
Could bring it down forever.
Praise the woman who has trampled that wall
To the ashes
Where the prejudices of humanity crumble
to nonexistence

It calls me by my name
My real name no one knows
And pensively I contemplate,
perhaps it named me

My face shines with awe at the woman
Who, like Harriet Beecher Stowe,
does not mind inky hands
As if the work of her small hands
could compel tears
I radiate awe to the woman
Who has united this world through emotion
And has wet the faces of her neighbors

Perhaps it is a fatal addiction
If so, I beg to capitulate to its poison
Spare me the opiate if this is pain
Rather, hone the weapon which afflicts me

Honor the woman
Who, like Maya Angelou,
Fans her face with the wings of a book
As if freeing her words could
Liberate people from their hurting
Honor the woman
Who has left the cage door ajar
and still does not forget the prisoner's laments
Long after it has flown

Praise the Woman who Writes