Ironweed

In 1734 . . . Angèlique, a Black slave of François Poulin of Montréal, was told that she was to be sold. In her fear and resentment she set fire to her master’s house. The house and other nearby property were destroyed, and Angèlique was arrested convicted of arson and sentenced to hang. A rope was tied around her neck, signs bearing the word ‘Incendiary’ were fastened on her back and chest, and she was driven through the streets in a scavenger’s cart. Worse was to come: she was tortured until she confessed her crime before a priest; then her hand was cut off and she was hanged in public.

—Daniel G. Hill, The Freedom Seekers—Blacks in Early Canada

Heavy black boots crunch up HOPE ST. So this is Providence, Rhode Island. My tongue is dubious of New England names; BENEVOLENT and ANGELL appear and reappear in thick circles of air. Across LLOYD, I run purple woollen fingers along a strophe of iron

bars, tasting dates hammered into iron plates. Here, history gives itself away. MOUNT HOPE is not a mountain, a fort, not even a church, but a day-care center run by women. Mothers who come from the islands (not this island), leave on mornings. Now at dusk, they reappear— purple silhouettes against a chain-link fence, whistling names.

One child quivers at the hiss and ring of her name. In the antilles, a wet finger kissing hot iron flickers the way a snake’s tongue flickers—a woman reappears, then disappears, begging light at my grandmother’s door. She hopes to reclaim her body; she has come for her island daughter. A tropical silhouette, I run,

wading thick snow until I can’t out run the years anymore; even the streets shed their names. HOPE belts EAST looping south to BLACKSTONE—la ceinture d’isle. So I bury the belt to my travelling dress under the iron- weed, next to a paling fence, a sway-backed serpent molting hope of everlasting life. Saltwater souls appear to disappear

from this New England town. Once, in New France, I appeared, a cardboard plaque for a face; black ink running like incendiary language, a mother’s reverent hope for her daughter—HELLO, MY NAME IS: MY FATHER’S NAME IS: IN CASE OF FIRE, CALL—Now my feet really feel like iron, belle bruised and weighted, ringing this plantation island.

An electric crucifix crests that real mountain island, where mother and child are sighted. Reappearing. At dusk, white lights twinkling on a skeleton of iron, we begin our thunderous descent. Blood burns a river, runs down my brown thighs. Yes, menarche shares its name with moon: this flowering blaze is a veined fist of hope.

I sigh ANGELL; Angèlique appears. In a flickering red run, a siren’s liquid angelus, Rhode Island ignites the palingenesis of a name. A bilingual retina hosts her smouldering, my ironic hunger for home.