Poet & Servant to Mr. Wheatley of Boston, on her Maiden Voyage to Britain
Kevin Young
Born in 1970 in Nebraska, Kevin Young is the author of seven collections of poetry. He holds a BA from Harvard University and an MFA in creative writing from Brown University and is currently the Atticus Haygood Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University. His poetry collection Jelly Roll: A Blues was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2003. This poem appeared in the anthology Giant Steps: The New Generation of African American Writers (2000), edited by Young.
There are days I can understand
why you would want to board
broad back of some ship
and sail: venture, not homeward
5
but toward Civilization’s
Cold seat,—having from wild
been stolen, and sent into more wild
of Columbia, our exiles
and Christians clamoring upon
10
the cobblestones of Bostontown—
Sail across an Atlantic (this time) mild,
the ship’s polite and consumptive
passengers proud. Your sickness
quit soon as you disembarked in mist
15
of England—free, finally, of our Republic’s
Rough clime, its late converts who thought
they would not die, or die simply
in struggle, martyr to some God,—
you know of gods there
20
are many, who is really only
One—and that sleep, restless fever
would take most you loved. Why
fate fight? Death, dark mistress,
would come a-heralding silent
25
the streets,—no door to her closed,
No stair (servant or front) too steep.
Gen. Washington, whom you praise,
victorious, knows this—will even admit
you to his parlor. Who could resist a Negress
30
who can recite Latin and speak the Queen’s?
Docked among the fog and slight sun
of London, you know who you are not
but that is little new. Native
of nowhere,—you’ll stay a spell, return,
35
write, grow still. I wake with you
In my mind, leaning, learning
to write—your slight profile
that long pull of lower lip, its pout
proving you rescued by
40
some sadness too large to name.
My Most Excellence, my quill
and ink lady, you spill such script
no translation it needs—
your need is what’s missing, unwritten
45
wish to cross back but not back
Into that land (for you) of the dead—
you want to see from above
deck the sea, to pluck from wind
a sense no Land can
50
give: drifting, looking not
For Leviathan’s breath, nor waves
made of tea, nor for mermen half-
out of water (as you)—down
in the deep is not the narwhal enough real?
55
Beneath our wind-whipt banner you smile
At Sea which owns no country.
(1998)