LOVE

Love is a word another kind of open— As a diamond comes into a knot of flame I am black because I come from the earth's inside Take my word for jewel in your open light. Audre Lorde, “Coal” from The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde. Copyright © 1997 by Audre Lorde. Reprinted with the permission of Charlotte Sheedy Literary Agency and W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., www.nortonpoets.com.