The Age of Phillis. Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
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Dear Miss Mary:
I know that marriage is a woman’s
tithe, but this house is cold without you.
I know it is not my place to question
these patterns, why letters speak
a language, and then, the muses cry to me.
[i hope you find this letter in your reticule
i miss you already i thought to leave with you
until mistress held me back]
Yet if I could question Our Lord’s Word,
I’d ask, why is marriage a woman’s task?
[i have no sister of my own each time someone
leaves this house even for a short season i think
of that day i was cut from my earth]
Your mother has explained the stain
of Eve, but tells me, as a slave girl,
marriage is not for me, that I should be glad
that particular chain has passed me by—
I should focus on the Lord for my plight.
[what is it like to call a room your own to sit
in the middle and not on a corner stool
do you feel grand does the hand
weighted by your ring
make you free or mastered]
Your Phillis
THE AGE OF PHILLIS
How old was the child when she first laughed
in her master’s kitchen? She shouldn’t have
been eating at the table with the whites,
but Susannah might have flouted custom:
her woman’s heart soft. Tender. Unboiled meat.
When the child was very small, Susannah
might have brought her into the dining room,
sat her on a stool, placed plain crockery
on the child’s lap, engaged with her in English,
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