The Age of Phillis. Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

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СКАЧАТЬ counting is different.

      In Phillis’s home, the Wolof

      number in groups of five, but

      only possessions or livestock.

      It is a bad luck proposition

      to count your offspring: you might

      as well prepare their funeral winding—

      but facile, the learning of English.

      The sound of it, then reading.

      When Mary marries the Reverend,

      this desk will go with her,

      but that is for later.

      In this room, she’s a maiden,

      covered by the name of her father

      who is away trading in dry

      goods and one or two slaves.

      The mother sits in a cushioned

      chair, looking up from her sewing

      at the two girls,

      the oldest pointing at the page,

      the baby rounding her mouth.

      There is compassion in dust and sun.

      If Susannah tilts her head,

      she can deceive herself

      that another daughter

      is quick from the grave,

      that Sarah is the girl who laughs.

      Anyone can rise from the dead,

      for isn’t Phillis here and breathing,

      and wasn’t her ship a coffin?

LOST LETTER #1: PHILLIS WHEATLEY, BOSTON, TO SUSANNAH WHEATLEY, BOSTON

       January 18, 1764

      Dear Mistress:

      Odysseus sailed the ocean like me

      and Nymphs held him in their arms.

      They are ladies like my yaay.

       [i will burn this letter in the hearth you are

       watching me as i smile i am a good girl i am]

      I shall practice my lessons for you

      and Miss Mary, pretend Master Nathaniel

      does not yank my hair and tell me,

      he’ll take a razor and shave me bald.

      For you, God will scrub my skin—

      but when might I see my yaay? I cannot

      recall how she would say bird or baby

      or potato in that other place.

      Yaay needs to see that my teeth grew in,

      that I am alive after my long journey.

       [yaay come for me please i shall be a good

       girl i have forgotten how to be naughty]

      Today snow comes down. Outside,

      a soul has slipped and fallen on the ice.

      That’s what that crying means.

      Your servant and child,

      Phillis

PHILLIS WHEATLEY PERUSES VOLUMES OF THE CLASSICS BELONGING TO HER NEIGHBOR, THE REVEREND MATHER BYLES

       c. 1765

      I hope that the days Phillis walked

      across the street or around the corner

      to explore the reverend’s library,

      she was escorted by Mary or Susannah.

      We know she was brilliant, this child.

      Also: biddable, quiet, no wild tendencies—

      a surprise to the learned man,

      as she refused to surrender

      the ring through her nose—

      so strange—

      and he had other expectations

      of her Nation, based upon his studies

      of the early (translated)

      accounts of her continent, written

      by Arabs, Portuguese, and later,

      investors of the Royal African Company.

      The reverend might

      have quizzed the child on the philosopher

      Terence, born in Tunisia, who put

      aside alien surprise.

      Motes suspended in the room,

      specks of Homer’s stories—

      as rendered by the (cranky) Pope—

      how Odysseus, reckless,

      bobbed around the world.

      His sailors, the equally silly crew,

      trapped by his urging words

      (but not shackles) accompanied him—

      if alone with the Reverend,

      I hope there was no danger

      for Phillis in his house, that

      he and she sat with decent

      space between them.

      That he didn’t settle her on his lap.

      That she didn’t want to—

      but couldn’t—

      slap at his searching fingers.

      I hope he was a gentleman.

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