nat turner looks to the heavens
years later, some will credit this love of sky as a mere aberration
at best a whimsy born of heart sick
as if we haven’t looked to the skies for thousands of years
a way to divine what faith alone cannot foretell
I live in a land where to say i want to be free
is heresy—here my tongue blasphemes as the earth spins
what can I be in a world that makes my desire heretic
other than an acolyte of signs? I’ve seen corn sweat blood
like dew, god standing in a blaze of sky thicketed with stars
sharp and bright like oiled steel, beckoning me to look for signs
commanding slay my enemies, the moon eclipsing
the sun and heaven—I was baptized in its shadow
there god knew me not as a slave or fool
but crowned me son held me to her chest
as a mother would a precious child
spoke quiet in my ear my child, fight
who was I to turn away from the story of my own creation?
I who pledged to follow every vision to its source
found myself here in jerusalem
I have known whips iron and prayer
I have known whole forests the pulsing veins of leaves
hieroglyphics of prophecy I tell you
I have known my own end hung and skinned
my body more tender then my spirit
my god, my mother lifting me into sky
Nat Turner led a rebellion of enslaved people attempting to assert their freedom, battling against state and federal forces. His rebellion was inspired by a series of celestial signs and visions where God spoke directly to him. He was found after hiding in the woods for two months, tried in Jerusalem, Virginia, then hung and skinned on November 11th, 1831
a brief sermon on misogynoir or I give a eulogy to my uterus
after the hysterectomy I wake up with my wife beside me
the room’s white blinding
she holds my hand tender as rain and says
you’re alive with a triumphant smile
a magician announcing the final trick
my breath the final flourish in a long protracted act
I touch my belly soft feel the ache of longing
look around the room and see everything
that could have been my children’s children
playing in the quiet dim corners as the tv news
continues its undisciplined witness I bleed
an unmistakable dark language
between my legs my uterus fighting me
like a bitter old man denied his way
scrunched and red faced, he’s been
screaming at a fevered pitched for days calling
thundering these babies could have been yours
little does he know how hard headed I can be
weathered by forty years of cat calls
the hot nights spent playing in my mother’s mother’s
kitchen as my aunts laugh and cry for husbands
who chase desire like prey
I’ve been nursed on the knife’s blade
raised on stories of anarcha lucy betsey
wombs stretched beyond knowing
for white hot wonder even now they sit here
with me, their mouths part open
and I see trees, the north star expectant
and glowing
I’m tired of being bullied by longing
god let this body be a machine that serves only me
Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsey were the three enslaved women, J. Marion Sims, credited as the father of gynecology, subjected to a series of experiments without anesthesia.
Saida Agostini is a queer Afro-Guyanese poet whose work explores how Black folks harness mythology to enter the fantastic. Her work is featured or forthcoming in the Academy of American Poets’ Poem a Day, Poet Lore, Plume, amongst others. Saida’s work can be found in several anthologies, including Not Without Our Laughter: Poems of Humor, Sexuality and Joy. Her first full length collection let the dead in was released by Alan Squire Publishing (March 2022). A Cave Canem Graduate Fellow, Saida is a two-time Pushcart Prize Nominee and Best of the Net Finalist. She lives online at www.saidaagostini.com