came to our shores, women pressed your cloth
into the clay pots to make new designs.
I am my mother’s pot, my flesh is
her living clay, and you, John, have pressed your cloth
into my fabled skin and made me new,
as I, growing big-bellied with child,
lay dead fish in your corn fields to make them grow
for the boy I sing to when you call me
Rebecca, the noose who snared you, and I
call you Isaac when I hold you inside
my soul still turning cartwheels by tide
pools in Virginia, by rivers of water
frothing white over darkened waves where
the ocean meets Tenakomakah lands,
where the ocean from the east meets the river
from the west, north of Jamestown, where
your people first settled, and I fed them
corn and pumpkin seeds when they were dying.
The dying lived, and you came, and brought me
back to the King of England, who danced
with me at a masque as Ben Jonson’s players
revealed a vision of delight, harmony,
and wonder, heralding a spring I will
never see with you, my John, my Isaac:
hold my hand in yours, my husband,
for it is enough that our child shall live.
SOR JUANA INES DE LA CRUZ SINGS OF A SWAN
First Portrait
When I was young, the painter came and painted me
beautiful, a book in one hand, my other hand turned out
as if waiting for You to take it and ask me to dance.
But all my secrets were simmering inside me
like spices—like cinnamon—or red pepper
ground to powder and ready to burn your mouth.
My desires were as sweet as a singing swan.
Second Portrait
I went away from the house where I was fostered
and took refuge in a monastery dedicated to Saint Jerome,
and he came again, that painter, and painted me:
sitting in my black and white habit, a wall of books
behind me, one open before me (not the Bible),
my beads wound round my body and dripping down
my shoulder, across my thigh, held in my hand,
but easy to ignore in comparison
to the oval portrait, like a shield of faith, upon my breast
showing an angel with rainbow wings flying above
someone kneeling, like Paul on the Damascus road, before
the Power that changes us in the middle of our life’s path.
Little did I know! All that would be asked of me
by the Archbishop—my books, my music,
my scientific instruments—for answering Sor Filotea.
Yes, I confess, I said that a woman has as much
a right as a man to learn to read and write, and to do it
freely! But I was not free. I was bound by my vows.
So I surrendered all.
Third Portrait
The painter came again and painted me before I died,
one hand resting on the book of my own works, the other
holding the breviary (for life is brief), while wearing
my escudo, another oval painting upon my breast, this time showing a woman, an angel, and a dove
descending from heaven and announcing that
the new life had come.
A PRAYER OF MARTHA BALLARD, MIDWIFE
When the stillborn child won’t wake,
when the breath I breathe into him doesn’t move him,
when his mother’s blood is still pouring out,
and I have to make a choice—
Lord, have mercy.
When the morning light comes in the window,
when darkness flees before the dawn,
when I walk outside in the tender mist,
and tears gather in the well of my heart—
Lord, have mercy.
When I sleep and dream of heaven,
when I wake and go to the baby’s funeral,
when I comfort his mother and then return home
only to receive word of a another woman in labor—
Lord, have mercy.
SONG OF SOJOURNER TRUTH
Growing Up
The Colonel thought he owned me
just because my mama and daddy were slaves.
His son thought so, too, and sold me
when I was nine for a flock of sheep
and a hundred dollars. That was back when
they called me Belle, and I spoke only Dutch.
The new man—calling himself Master Neely—
he raped me everyday and beat me
with a bundle of rods and sold me two years later
to a tavern keeper. He sold me when I was eleven years old.
The tavern keeper sold me to Dumont,
and Dumont seemed kinder. I met Robert,
a slave like me, on a neighboring farm,
and I loved him. But the man who called
himself Robert’s Master, he said no, you cain’t
marry that girl down the road—because he knew
he wouldn’t own our children, Dumont would.
So he beat Robert good and hard for loving me,
and then, Robert died. He just up and died
from that beating and left me alone.
My daughter Diana came after her daddy died.
There she was in my arms, her sweet face,
her mouth milk-wet, her eyes like Robert’s eyes
when I looked down into her soul, and I could hear
Robert laughing, like he was right there,
like an angel come down to look over my shoulder
at this little girl we made, and sometimes
I felt his hands on my waist again, more
than