African American Poetry (1870-1928): A Digital Anthology

Arna Bontemps, "Idolatry" (1927)

You have been good to me, I give you this: 
The arms of lovers empty as our own, 
Marble lips sustaining one long kiss 
And the hard sound of hammers breaking stone. 
 
For I will build a chapel in the place 
Where our love died and I will journey there 
To make a sign and kneel before your face 
And set an old bell tolling on the air. 


Published in Ebony and Topaz, 1927

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