I tiptoe into the room where the crib is
I peer down at myself
Baby girl, as my mother called me
Even when I was a grown woman
I pick her up and cradle her
She can’t hear her parents fighting
She doesn’t know the hell she will go through
Right now she knows the
Sound of her mother’s beating heart
And the lullaby she sings that I can never find
 
Baby girl, you don’t know me yet, but you will
I come bearing gifts like the wise men at the manger
I bestow upon you a beautiful mind
At 10 years old you will want to be the first black woman
President and Supreme Court Justice
You will watch Vietnam documentaries AND
Professional Wrestling
And be addicted to true crime
You will play fight with boys but hit them for real
For something they did yesterday
You will be a bastion of useless information
But knowledge will be only one of your powers
 
I bestow strength
You will bear the crosses of men
You should crucify instead
They will tell you you’re beautiful
But you won’t believe it until your daughter tells you
And you see yourself in the eyes of your favorite lover
Before you roll your own back
 
Your lips will grow into pillows that will
Comfort babies and
Collide with lovers like jets over Hamburger Hill
You will grow in beauty, with tiger eyes and
Hair that men will beg you not to cut
Cut it anyway Delilah
 
You will have a son and lose him
And you will position yourself at
The base of the wailing wall and you will
Moan, you will sway, and yet you will not die
You will give birth to rainbows
Promises that the pain was worth it
Even when the ark of your heart
Is slammed against rocks
It will not break
 
You will be the one to say the things
Others are scared to say
You will proudly wear a target and
Dare them to take a shot
You will be the one to be as blunt as a brick wall
You will be the oracle but unlike
Cassandra, they will listen
 
Baby Girl
I call upon the patience and grace
I have yet to find,
It will not be an easy road we travel
Sometimes we will walk, others run
Others crawl away on our belly
From the trenches in the war inside us
But you will not die.
 
Warsan Shire will call us a woman who is difficult to love
But there is divinity in us
Magic, Power, Sex, Anger
A heart, hot glued, dirty,
An old woman with a rose at door of a prince
Waiting for true love’s kiss
But start with the mirror my love
And leave your lips on the glass as a reminder
 

One day you will have a choice
To touch the spindle and die
Or hide forever behind the wailing wall
Touch the spindle baby girl
You will not die.