The Age of Phillis. Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
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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.
Book in hand.
Absent, scholar’s gaze.
LOST LETTER #2: PHILLIS WHEATLEY, BOSTON, TO SAMSON OCCOM, LONDON
March 10, 1766
Dear Most Reverend Sir:
In the name of our Benevolent Savior
Jesus Christ, I bring you tall greetings.
I have never sat with an Indian before.
[i write as i am instructed the white
lady’s hand patting my shoulder]
My mistress says your people are savages,
that I should pray for your tarnished souls.
She says that once I was a savage, too.
[i hurt for my yaay and baay and oh
the mornings of ablutions and millet]
Mistress says that beasts in my homeland
might have devoured me, before God’s mercy—
I enclose my unworthy verse,
and I pray for your heathen brethren.
Prayer makes my mistress very happy.
[the white lady tells me i am lucky
i was saved from my parents
who prayed to carvings and beads
she says my yaay and baay are pagans
though i am allowed to keep loving them
do you pray for your playmates are they yet
alive i do not know where mine were taken
on that day i am reminded to forget]
Your humble servant,
Phillis
LOST LETTER #3: SAMSON OCCOM, LONDON, TO PHILLIS WHEATLEY, BOSTON
August 24, 1766
Dear Little Miss Phillis:
I was happy to receive the kind
favors of your letter and poem,
across this wide water that God created.
[child you are no more savage than me
and what i am is a hungry prayer]
I teach my young ones from Exodus,
that God can be an angry man
and vengeful to the disobedient.
[i teach them to hunt and fish in case renewed
times come i teach them to carve upon
the birch the stories of our ancient line
one of my daughters is near your age i worry
about her she knows the words to our people’s
songs longs to sing in the day but her mother
and i stay her tongue we do not wish danger]
Remember that strict submission
is the watchword of any Christian girl.
Stay mild and consider your masters’ rules.
An Unworthy Servant of Christ,
Samson Occom
SUSANNAH WHEATLEY TENDS TO PHILLIS IN HER ASTHMATIC SUFFERING
Boston, January 1767
When you own a child,
can you treat her the same?
I don’t mean when you birth her,
when you share a well of blood.—
This is a complicated space.
There is slavery here.
There is maternity here.
There