The Age of Phillis. Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

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