According to the Testimony to the Grand Jury of Newport, Rhode Island by the Sailor John Cranston, After Throwing a Coromantee Woman Into the Sea, James DeWolf, the Captain of the Slave Ship Polly, Mourned the Loss of the Good Chair to Which He Had Strapped His Victim c. 1791
Was it a ball and claw with an embroidered seat—
brocade?—
that brought on the captain’s grief,
and not a common stool, or a slat back,
arched or straight, the high exaggeration
indicating the body’s confidence in its lifted length—
or a Windsor, which is interesting, too,
as the slender rods keep the spine
from leaning far away from the center
of gravity, a force that had been discovered
a mere century and a half before,
an infant next to the trade plied by this rich man
who would grow richer and stay free and found
something as precious as sweet water—
dear—
next to endless salt that made him mourn
the loss of the craftsman’s whistle,
that moved him so in his duty—
he had to do it—
Smallpox running through his crew,
the inevitability of insurrection—
had that happened—
mercy—
forced him to love the wood’s
brown skin one last time—
walnut? cherry?—
and pray for the sap’s essence soured
next to the diseased Coromantee woman strapped
to it, blindfolded, gagged—
her fear silky on ashy flesh—
the combination of both stinking, a defilement
of such delicate and yet unnatural beauty,
the embroidery or brocade stained, the waste:
throwing so good a chair into the sea?
Accept it: there must have been carvings
along the arms and legs as well.
***
Honorée Jeffers is the author of 4 books of poetry. Her most recent, The Glory Gets (Wesleyan University Press), is the Rumpus Poetry Book Club selection for April.
