Waxing Poetic: Harlem Sweeties

Harlem Sweeties

by Langston Hughes

Have you dug the spill

Of Sugar Hill?

Cast your gims

On this sepia thrill:

Brown sugar lassie,

Caramel treat,

Honey-gold baby

Sweet enough to eat.

Peach-skinned girlie,

Coffee and cream,

Chocolate darling

Out of a dream.

Walnut tinted

Or cocoa brown,

Pomegranate-lipped

Pride of the town.

Rich cream-colored

To plum-tinted black,

Feminine sweetness

In Harlem’s no lack.

Glow of the quince

To blush of the rose.

Persimmon bronze

To cinnamon toes.

Blackberry cordial,

Virginia Dare wine—

All those sweet colors

Flavor Harlem of mine!

Walnut or cocoa,

Let me repeat:

Caramel, brown sugar,

A chocolate treat.

Molasses taffy,

Coffee and cream,

Licorice, clove, cinnamon

To a honey-brown dream.

Ginger, wine-gold,

Persimmon, blackberry,

All through the spectrum

Harlem girls vary—

So if you want to know beauty’s

Rainbow-sweet thrill,

Stroll down luscious,

Delicious, fine Sugar Hill.

Langston Hughes, “Harlem Sweeties” from Collected Poems. Copyright © 1994 by The Estate of Langston Hughes.

Photos: 1. Vixens from photo shoot, 2. Aeshia De Vore, 3. Kelis

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