ELLEN JUNE WRIGHT, FEATURED IN THE NEW OCEAN STATE REVIEW

While Thinking of Another’s Suffering

                        (For Angela, enslaved, Jamestown, Virginia 1619)

understanding
what she ate—

the grit of it
the foul of it

I linger under
the shower

the unending
clean water

coming down.
I think of her body

covered in sweat
and stench

unable to wash even
between her legs at will

or to wash her hair
as needed

I love my skin
the more I know

hers doomed her
to forced labor

and an early death
I even appreciate

my often-lost keys
knowing she held none

“While Thinking of Another’s Suffering” is one of seventy poems written for my first collection about an Angolan woman named Angela who arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, in August of 1619, more than a year before the Mayflower arrived in the North. It’s one of the later poems in the sequence. I was trying to put myself in her place and understand even the smallest daily challenges of a woman living 400 years ago as an enslaved person. Even the most mundane tasks of life would have been so much more difficult for her than they are for me. In this poem, I contemplate the luxury of having indoor plumbing and unlimited hot water, as opposed to having to draw water from a well or carry it from a river, having to heat it and having no bathtub to soak in, no shower to stand under. Every aspect of her life was more arduous than mine, and then I thought about my keys. How she would never have had keys of her own being property and unable to claim ownership of anything in her life. Unfortunately, millions of women today live under similar circumstances as Angela lived 400 years ago with limited access to clean running water, without rights to education or ownership of property. In their communities, they are little more than property of the men who rule.

Ellen June Wright is an American poet with British and Caribbean roots. Her work has been published in national and international online and print journals including the Naugatuck River Review, New York Quarterly, Plume, Atlanta Review, Solstice, Tar River Poetry, Paterson Literary Review, Gordon Square Review, The South Carolina Review, Obsidian, Caribbean Writer, Tulsa Review and Verse Daily. Much of her daily writing practice examines American history through the lens of the African American experience. She also writes about mother-daughter relationships, violence against the Black body, coming of age, nature and faith. She is a Cave Canem and Hurston/Wright alumna. She received six Pushcart Prize nominations between 2021 and 2022, and is a 2024 Best of the Net nominee. You may follow her on https://twitter.com/EllenJuneWrites and https://www.instagram.com/ellenjunewrites/