Nikki Giovanni poem #4

                                            Choices
                                     

If i can't do
what i want to do
then my job is to not
do what i don't want
to do
It's not the same thing
but it's the best i can
do

If i can't have
what i want . . . then
my job is to want
what i've got
and be satisfied
that at least there
is something more to want

Since i can't go
where i need
to go . . . then i must . . . go
where the signs point
through always understanding
parallel movement
isn't lateral

When i can't express
what i really feel
i practice feeling
what i can express
and none of it is equal
I know
but that's why mankind
alone among the animals
learns to cry       

This poem deals with choices, but it actually talks about choices when you don't really have the choices you believe you should have. The only real choices you may have are between things that you didn't really want in the first place because your "real" choice is not available to you. It shows angst of being both black and female in a white man's world. "The Drum" deals with how she will handle a world "tight and hard" like a drum...as defined by her father, to whom she says she'll simply "beat out my own rhythm"...meaning that she can't change the way the world is, but she will do what she can with what she has and it will be enough.