Research project- Analysis……. Must include all sources and elements of poems

I have already developed the research topic, thesis, and the authors I want to use. Use sources to help connect poems to reality. 
Analyze each poem and tell what they mean.

Hanging Fire- Audre Lorde
I am fourteen
and my skin has betrayed me
the boy I cannot live without
still sucks his tumb
in secret
how come my knees are
always so ashy
what if I die
before the morning comes
and momma’s in the bedroom
with the door closed.
I have to learn how to dance
in time for the next party
my room is too small for me
suppose I de before graduation
they will sing sad melodies
but finally
tell the truth aout me
There is nothing I want to do
and too much
that has to be done
and momma’s in the bedroom
with the door closed.

 A Woman Speaks 
 
Moon marked and touched by sun   
my magic is unwritten
but when the sea turns back
it will leave my shape behind.   
I seek no favor
untouched by blood
unrelenting as the curse of love   
permanent as my errors
or my pride
I do not mix
love with pity
nor hate with scorn
and if you would know me
look into the entrails of Uranus   
where the restless oceans pound.

I do not dwell
within my birth nor my divinities   
who am ageless and half-grown   
and still seeking
my sisters
witches in Dahomey
wear me inside their coiled cloths   
as our mother did
mourning.

I have been woman
for a long time
beware my smile
I am treacherous with old magic   
and the noon’s new fury
with all your wide futures   
promised

I am
woman
and not white.

 poem in praise of menstruation – Lucille Clifton
 
if there is a river
more beautiful than this
bright as the blood
red edge of the moon          if
there is a river
more faithful than this
returning each month
to the same delta          if there

is a river
braver than this
coming and coming in a surge
of passion, of pain          if there is
a river
more ancient than this
daughter of eve
mother of cain and of abel          if there is in
the universe such a river          if
there is some where water
more powerful than this wild
water
pray that it flows also
through animals
beautiful and faithful and ancient
and female and brave

 
the lost baby poem 
the time I dropped your almost body down
down to meet the waters under the city 
and run one with the sewage to the sea 
what did i know about waters rushing back 
what did i know about drowning or being drowned  
you would have been born into winter in the year of the disconnected gas and no car       
we would have made the thin walk over genesee hill 
into the canada wind to watch you 
slip like ice into strangers’ hands 
you would have fallen naked as snow into winter 
if you were here i could tell you these 
and some other things  
if i am ever less than a mountain for your definite 
brothers and sisters let the rivers pour over my head
let the sea take me for a spiller of seas       
let black men call me stranger always
for your never named sake 

later i’ll say
i spent my life
loving a great man
later
my life will accuse me
of various treasons
not black enough
too black
eyes closed when they should have been open
eyes open when they should have been closed
will accuse me for unborn babies
and dead trees
later
when i defend again and again
with this love
my life will keep silent
listening to
my body breaking