(Mary Burton)
Some nights she lay in bed, fingernail
ridging up little paths of black glass
on the frosted pane: one way out,
but where? Work and more work stretched
like the ocean she'd sailed. But even the ocean
had an end. They called it Boston.
Bearing the master's child: a criminal offense.
She came alone to New York City,
indenture sold to Hughson. At his public house,
winter mornings she shattered ice
over the well, saw courtyard creatures stilled:
birds fallen, stray dog looped around
a nest of frozen pups. Blue-lipped,
she pulled the rope between her hands.
Shannon Estlund, Cold Air (oil on canvas)
Poet's Commentary:
These six poems are from a linked collection about the 1741 New York City Slave Conspiracy. In the trials, on the testimony of a single teenaged servant girl, over a hundred slaves were burned at the stake, hung, or sold to the West Indies.