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FREEDOMWAYS  THIRD QUARTER 1969
And not quite making it...
How much I love him
For he is me and I is he
And we refuse to die
Backed against the wall
Of our shortcomings
And have yet magic, black as me
To move us through the night...31

Or a humorous, yet subtly biting dialogue between a white lady and domestic worker by Mari Evans:
Mattie dear
the box is full
take
whatever you like
to eat...
(an egg
or soup
...there ain't no meat).
there's endive there
and cottage cheese...
(whew if I had some 
black-eyed peas...)
there's sardines
on the shelves
and such...
but
don't get my anchovies...
they cost
too much!
(...Hope I lives till I get home
I'm tired of eatin'
what they eats
in Rome...)32

And in Etheridge Knight's (a prisoner in a federal penitentiary) poem "Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane," the poet gives a fine portrayal of a fierce inmate who, like the character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, was bold enough to defy the crippling institution's insane power over its patient criminals and thus bring some life into the institution. But
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