In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • The Wives of Frederick Douglass: Sewing a Sailor Outfit for Frederick, and: Call and Response: The Second Wife*, and: Throwing Like a Girl
  • Marjorie Maddox (bio)

The Wives of Frederick Douglass: Sewing a Sailor Outfit for Frederick

Anna Murray,

first wife of Frederick Douglass,

1813-1882

A free woman, her knuckles raw,she scrubs clothes and floors,sells her bed, collects her few bills for tickets,and stitches her love a sailor-shirt disguiseas red as a soaring cardinal.

          Sharp needles prick both skin and cloth,          pull together two sides of fabric,          cover the person traveling.

In her dreams, she hears the click-clackof his escape, tracks leading him awayto the unknown and only so-so-brotherly Philadelphia. But first,the conductor's hand, waiting for papers.

          Runaway, runaway thread,          follow the ins-and-outs to safety,          hold to his chest this trail of her hands.

A borrowed certificate. A nod.Then the engine chugs relief,exhales all the smoky lettershe's learned/he's taught on slateas black as engines, as faces.

          Her steel needle punctures          what protects him, this disguise,          this railroad route to freedom.

Later she will join him, marry, moveto Massachusetts, birth five babies, moveto Rochester, recreate—from the shelterof her home, from the warmth of her wide-openwashing/sewing arms—that human train.

          This motion the beginning: measuring          her love, planning the pattern,          holding up to the light the needle's eye.

Before his days of train-after-train, ship-after-ship,talk-after-talk; before her loneliness, death; beforehis depression, a second marriage that rockedsociety; before all this: just a needle, her needle,and her red thread of hope. [End Page 391]

          "If there is no struggle," her love said,          "there is no progress." Here it is.          Cut the cloth. Begin.

Yes, Frederick, begin—with your tarpaulin hat,your black scarf, and your red sailor shirtstitched in fear, in joy. What will beis rounding the curve. Listen. Can you hearbeneath the train's roar her fingers stitching?

          Buy the thread, Anna. Buy the needle.          Board the train, Frederick. Step up.

Call and Response: The Second Wife*

Helen Pitts, 1838-1903

Twenty years younger Lovecame to me and white, and Iand she was not afraid to stand upto marry the man against family,against scandal because of his color smoothcedar The mind does not take its complexionjust one year from the skin after the other's

passing and Frederick This proveslifted out of his sorrow I am impartialresponded My first wife deep sorrowwas the color of buckeyes of my motherand the second, this suffragette, thisabolitionist, this partner, the colorof wind-blown wheat of my father

and now, his voice weary, I have very littlesympathy but never averting his eyeswith the curiosity of the worldI love, yes, I loveabout my domestic relationswhom I love. [End Page 392]

Throwing Like a Girl

Seventy-miles Mo'Ne style,fastball, curveball, flashing into-the-futureball, every which way butlosing.

         Batter's up,     so we chant         "Mo'ne! Mo'ne!"awake, sleeping, warming upfor the life worth stealingin this home run of a serieswe call "team,"         we call "You go, Girl,"

braided phenom with an armthat hurls hope way past today'swhirl of photo ops and change-ups,

all the way to a close upof two T-ball boys playing the part,debating, voices escalating         "I'm Mo'ne."                     "No! I'm Mo'ne!"

and a summer of daughtersleaning into the pitch that blasts the phrase  "throwing like a girl"              into the All-Star compliment         that it can be,                   that it is

when lean machine Mo'netakes the mound,smiles as wide as a long drive,then delivers the dreamwe braided girls of         baseball,     basketball,    soccer,         business,    science,          writingstill need in whatever              and every season. [End Page 393]

Marjorie Maddox

Winner of America Magazine's 2019 Foley Poetry Prize, Lock Haven University English professor Marjorie Maddox is the great-grandniece of baseball legend Branch Rickey. She is the...

pdf

Share