ADMONITIONS by Lucille Clifton.

boys
I don't promise you nothing
but this
what you pawn
I will redeem
what you steal
I wil conceal
my private silence to
your public guilt
is all I got

girls
first time a white man
opens his fly
like a good thing
we'll just laugh
laugh real loud my
black women

children
when they ask you
why your mama so funny
say
she is a poet
she don't have no sense...