Glory Land

(In memory of the Africans of Jamestown, And for my mother, Angeline, who named me.)

Angelo they wrote, a man’s name. And named me the same, man’s name out of ignorance or spite or haste or casual hate, a flourished o instead of an a for Angela. Both of us deprived; I paid to have my name made right, Mississippi Bureau of Records. She was forgotten as “Negro Woman” night-woman spilled out of Treasurer, a treasure assigned for servitude, at the pleasure of Captain William Pierce and wife, June. Each day pierced her heart, Negro woman.

Mareo, Christian, Nando, Acquero,Palmeno, Cuba, Salvo, Angelo, a man’s name for a woman. Slave. Treasure. Names engraved on a gallery wall at Jamestown, Virginia, where Africans came on a ship seized by pirates from pirates of human matter and mist of dream.

Angela pounding grain in Angola, land of cassava, ambling cattle, craftsmen crafting with stern, nimble fingers, miners of rock salt and tar, makers of shell money not human money. Christian Angela who wrote her own name, literate and lovely, Angela captured on a beach in Luanda. Ship set sail to cruxifixion, piercing her heart. The last look at her home’s land.

Do Lord, oh do Lord, oh, do remember me.

Wash, dust, chop, scrub, rub, cook in the Captain’s house. Counted in a census as Angelo,a Negro woman, seeing her but not seeing her.

Dark Angela, a shadow to them. Who came out of Africa, by way of Treasurer, treasure, my name sake forgotten. I am a servant like she who once drank from a cup of custom and memory.

           I, Angela.            Angolan.

           American            Against my will.            Before there was            America.

           Angela.            Still.            Stepped out of a ship.            Into captivity.

Oh, Lordy! Do, Lord.

1661. Servitude wheeled into slavery in perpetuity.

I, once servant. Now slave. No birth date, no death date for me.