To My Last Period

well, girl, goodbye,

after thirty-eight years.

thirty-eight years and you

never arrived

splendid in your red dress

without trouble for me

somewhere, somehow.

now it is done,

and i feel just like the

grandmothers who,

after the hussy has gone,

sit holding her photograph

and sighing, wasn’t she

beautiful? wasn’t she beautiful?

This poem appeared in Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton by Lucille Clifton, published by BOA Editions Ltd., 1991.

10.09.2026

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