Josephine Miles

"They deny good luck, love, power, romance, and inspiration From La Jac Brite ointment and incense of all kinds, And condemn in writing skin brightening and whitening and whitening of minds. There is upon the federal trade commission a burden of glory So to defend the fact, so to impel The plucking of hope from the hand, honor from the complexion, Sprite from the spell."

"Death did not come to my mother Like an old friend. She was a mother, and she must Conceive him. Up and down the bed she fought crying Help me, but death Was a slow child Heavy."

"In the roots of grammar, the stems of logic and the flowers of rhetoric take their being."

"Josephine Miles, who traveled with her wheelchair/around the country to read poems,/said, Don't make your poem a neat package with a/bow tied at the end. She also said,/It's hard to help."