Your Daily Poem: Lucille Clifton

Ed. note: For National Poetry Month, we’re highlighting one feminist poem each day in April. See the whole series here. 

Today’s poem is “wishes for sons” by Lucille Clifton, from her 1987 collection, Next, New Poems.

wishes for sons

i wish them cramps.
i wish them a strange town
and the last tampon.
i wish them no 7-11.

i wish them one week early
and wearing a white skirt.
i wish them one week late.

later i wish them hot flashes
and clots like you
wouldn’t believe. let the
flashes come when they
meet someone special.
let the clots come
when they want to.

let them think they have accepted
arrogance in the universe,
then bring them to gynecologists
not unlike themselves.

Syreeta McFadden is a co-curator of Poets In Unexpected Places.