Prayer of a Negro Girl Dying of Cancer

I done my best and I expects

I done better than most has done

I mean to weep before I die

I tell you I mean to cry

Before they pull the blanket down on me.

I guess I did my level best

And leaving Sam and all the rest

Is going to be hard you know

I don’t suppose you could spare

A miracle. I never cared so much

before and don’t deserve nothing extra.

But I got me a little girl growing up

And a good man loves me.

Maybe it counts for sumpthing to fill a need.

I’ve only had the spring of life

Hardly the summer

If you got to take me

Couldn’t you wait a while.

I know I’m dying

And I’m on a low tide rock

Praying for the tide to turn

But I’d like so much–just this once

for it not to drown me and I’m stranded out here.

Oh please! I can’t die

I’ve made the world be right for me and found a place

To move in and belong in

And it isn’t so easy when they tell you

That inspite of it all you’ve only got a little

day of sunshine left.

I look at myself

Skin over bones and I’m nothing but

O mass of dying organs O me!

I guess that’s one less darky for the

World to have trouble over.

God! Please I’ll–Oh I ain’t got

Nothing to offer in return

Only give me my summer days

With Sam–I guess even one more

Summer day would do.