The Age of Phillis. Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

      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,