The moonchild

Since this is a collection of poetry, there are no actual characters, no plot, no links from one piece to another. Each stands alone. However, Clifton refers to several characters more than once. She refers to herself as a child by her maiden name, Sayles, written with the lower case. She often explores Biblical characters, such as Lot, Adam and Eve, Christ, and Lucifer or Satan. She personifies inanimate objects or conditions, particularly in her famous menstruation and menopause poems. Taken as a composite, these brief vignettes of characterization establish Clifton as a thoughtful believer, a Christian, a Bible scholar, and an unflinchingly honest woman writer.

Moonchild is a word for an abused girl child, possibly Clifton herself. She looks at the other girls who are imagining sex, while she herself knows all about it, having had it at the hands of her father.

The nameless black slave man