• Death cut the strings that gave me life, And handed me to Sorrow, The only kind of middle wife My folks could beg or borrow.

    Countee Cullen: Death cut the strings that gave me life,
And handed me to Sorrow,
The only kind of middle wife
My folks could beg or borrow.
    Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.51, Library of America