July 4, 1974
By June Jordan
Washington, D.C.
At least it helps me to think about my son
a Leo/born to us
(Aries and Cancer) some
sixteen years ago
in St. John’s Hospital next to the Long Island
Railroad tracks
Atlantic Avenue/Brooklyn
New York
at dawn
which facts
do not really prepare you
(do they)
for him
angry
serious
and running through the darkness with his own
becoming light
Copyright Credit: June Jordan, “July 4, 1974” from Directed By Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan (Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2005). Copyright © 2005 by The June M. Jordan Literary Trust. Used by permission of The June M. Jordan Literary Trust, www.junejordan.com.
Source: The Collected Poems of June Jordan (2005)