Mend

Poems

Kwoya Fagin Maples

• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780813176291
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

The inventor of the speculum, J. Marion Sims, is celebrated as the "father of modern gynecology, " and a memorial at his birthplace honors "his service to suffering women, empress and slave alike." These tributes whitewash the fact that Sims achieved his surgical breakthroughs by experimenting on eleven enslaved African American women. Lent to Sims by their owners, these women were forced to undergo operations without their consent. Today, the names of all but three of these women are lost.

In Mend: Poems, Kwoya Fagin Maples gives voice to the enslaved women named in Sims's autobiography: Anarcha, Betsey, and Lucy. In poems exploring imagined memories and experiences relayed from hospital beds, the speakers challenge Sims's lies, mourn their trampled dignity, name their suffering in spirit, and speak of their bodies as "bruised fruit." At the same time, they are more than his victims, and the poems celebrate their humanity, their feelings, their memories, and their selves. A finalist for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Donald Hall Prize for Poetry, this debut collection illuminates a complex and disturbing chapter of the African American experience.

III.

Prayer Meeting

Way after night has put on his robe,

we put the washpot to the door

to catch our voices.

In the middle of all the shouting

and praising is the prettiest black boy

with big cow eyes

and my heart

sets to beating like a drum.

Folks laid out on the ground,

slain in the spirit

and all I see is this boy:

he has the straightest string of pearls

for teeth.

The Orange

He says don’t worry about where he got it from

His hand at my belly—my baby’s whole world in his palm

Eat this orange for the baby

go on, take it for my baby

His pine needle face to my face,

orange sections burst in our mouth

His words burn a hole in my dress:

We’re stealin’ sweet water, girl,

and it is sooo sweet

He says more things I won’t tell you—

until something warm, like honey,

fills my cup

Overseer Story (Told with a Smile)

Laugh while the years

race

down your face.

—Maya Angelou, “Why Are They Happy People?”

He dug a hole in the ground

in the shape of my big belly,

laid me across it,

then commenced

to laying on the lashes.

The whole time he beat me,

felt like my heart was gon’ bust,

and what with the little one

kickin’ my insides,

while he beat my outsides,

I thought I was gon’ die.

I swear, I thought I was gon’ die!

Delia

The morning I was born my mama carried me to an oak tree to let it nurse me while she went back to the fields.

Elegy for a Stillborn

To the One Who Carries Him Away

All of my children have died or wandered away.

—Molly Ammonds, from a 1937 slave narrative interview

Here are the milk and songs from my breast.

Here is his cover sewed from calico scrap

and dyed with peachtree.

Take this for nights when he is cold.

Here is the sheet I stole soap for

and washed in secret,

to catch him when he came.

It was to give him a clean start.

Take the old dresser drawer I meant for a cradle.

You will need pins from the washwoman

and this wrap from my hips—

You can carry him against your back.

Take the knife from under my bed

that they used to cut the pain.

I did not make a basket of medicines

I did not want to mark him sick,

But here is pine-top tea, and elderbrush.

Here are mullen leaves for when he cuts teeth.

Here is his corn husk doll.

And take the place I prepared for him near the fire:

the quilt folded in half, then again

so he would rest against something soft.

Take the room full of times

my hand crossed over my belly,

a prayer on my lips.

Southern Pastoral

little black children

march baskets of big-house

linens to the washwoman’s

shadow in the field

a blonde baby whimpers

from the green grass floor

the washwoman sways over the pot of lye,

her movements careful to not disturb

the fresh wounds in her back

she slowly works in soiled

linens with a soaked wooden stick

the silver-faced surface

winks at her in the sunlight

a wind starts up and lifts tufts

of the baby’s hair

the baby’s cotton

cheeks flush red

he begins to cry

and crawl towards the washwoman, who leans

the wet stick against the pot’s belly

the baby reaches her hem, salt

tears on his face, salt

on her back

she lifts him into the air

for seconds he is framed by the blue sky

the rush of her smell clouds through his nostrils

then quietly, as if told to

hush, the hungry lye opens

and closes its mouth

The Milk Still Comes In

milk breasts

mushroomed plump

like hoecakes baked in ashes

they always hold milk,

like the cloud-water when a dandelion stem

is broken.

milk veins dressed in breasts.

I press the teat for milk—

milk meant for a little, lost, baby.

they’d said when it came I’d feel a tingle,

but it was as sure as a citrus press,

inside I felt a hand clutch a handle

to pull it in.

my breasts—lump-full

with milk that never sours,

now given to little unknown mouths

that draw relentlessly, spoiling

what was meant to be hers.

Delia

All I can say is: my mind is gone off somewhere else. I mix hot lard to keep the ghosts away but they still come—they come carrying my breasts. One breast in each hand, like justice.

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