Your skin like dawn
Mine like musk
One paints the beginning
Of a certain end.
The other, the end of a
Dawn to Musk 
 
 The poem consists of a metaphor between skin and sky. 
 Maya Angelou compares white skin to “dawn.” 
 
 Implicitly, through the use of “musk,” she compares darker skin to “dusk.” 
 
 The  synesthesia  of “musk” – relating smell to color – adds connotations of  funk .
Passing Time