Audre Lorde introduces me to political warfare

i have to eat, i realize, upon first
hearing her. my first meal /
is gradual. slow start after nothing
for so long. restriction foregrounded
by famine: insurmountable miles
to mill, traversing the depression,
recession. my father grew gardens,
bountiful and abundant. at home,
where raffia and plantain palms rustle,
and here, too. despite the miles, he grew
so we’d remain, fed in the house where
drought and tilling rustles dust into wind
but a garden alone can’t keep a house
from assimilation. so i learned
english, bible verses, righteousness
as sacrifice, rarefied. rendering away my innards.

when i am filled with Lorde’s word, Wole Soyinka
appears to me. he tells me why he fasts, “I am
denied choice and thus all taste is rendered
non-existent.” i don’t want denial, i want the Struggle
/ of refuse. i escape with my belly. i feed her carrion
to the land and she opens to taste freedom, this flesh
fruit with seed, abates the barrenness. growling
with abandon, knowing now i will grow them full,
a garden, ripe and rendered for emancipation.