Stone Mirrors

by Jeannine Atkins

  small enough to pocket and forget.

  Cross-legged on a woven blanket, she took coins,

  traced the embossed reliefs of a bird, star,

  wreath, goddess. Even the metal pressed into profiles

  can be turned over. What’s unseen isn’t gone.

  Edmonia learned English from watching as well as listening,

  puzzling out secrets behind crunching eyes or curling fists,

  a talent useful here in court. She studies the ways

  eyebrows slant, lines on foreheads clench,

  how people peer without moving their necks or eyes,

  secretly craving scandal and wreckage

  more than justice, which is the same story every time.

  Her face stays as still as her aunts kept theirs

  when strangers picked up beaded belts or willow baskets,

  then put them back down.

  Stillness was a skill as much as the crafts.

  The Second Evening

  Edmonia moves Ruth’s Bible, algebra book,

  and Latin grammar from their desk. She leans

  across it, watching the setting sun tangle in treetops,

  darkness conceal the edge of the woods.

  She sees Thomas bite an apple he hands to Ruth,

  who tucks her chin to taste. She gives back the fruit,

  her hands still curved as if to remember its shape.

  Soon Ruth comes inside, drops her shawl,

  opens a book, closes it, studies Edmonia.

  There must be someone who can help.

  Are your aunts still at Niagara Falls?

  Do you know where your brother is?

  Samuel said he’d write when he had money to send me.

  Edmonia mailed a few letters, which were returned.

  She supposes her brother moves from one riverbed or cliff

  to another, but trusts he has her address and knows

  she’d like word from him even if he can’t send money.

  Could she run away and search for her father?

  Wouldn’t he help? She doesn’t even know

  what he looks like. After fleeing north through the woods,

  he must have glanced over his shoulder when he heard

  sudden noises. Probably every colored man in Canada

  was afraid of being followed. She couldn’t approach

  each one and ask, Did you leave behind a daughter?

  Edmonia swallows hard. A beak seems to snap her throat,

  a beast gnaws her belly. I can’t walk back in there.

  Even people who don’t think I’m guilty want me to be.

  You must be strong. Others have survived worse.

  Don’t tell me about Hagar.

  I wasn’t thinking about her.

  Edmonia, if the worst happens,

  you won’t be like Cleopatra, will you?

  You mean choose poison instead of prison?

  Edmonia’s face hardens. She did the noble thing.

  She was wrong! And maybe we were, too,

  not telling anyone about the brutes who attacked

  you in the field. I hate that they’re still free.

  Nothing happened. Edmonia must hold the line

  between the past and present. It may be all she has.

  I thought it was strange that no one at the school called

  the sheriff, or reported the men. Maybe it was courtesy.

  They wanted to help put it behind you. But if your lawyer

  is concerned that no one will send their children

  to a school where someone attempts murder,

  I suppose they also worry that no one might

  go to a school where a girl was attacked in a field.

  I’m all right.

  Edmonia, you can confide in someone.

  What starts out seeming like weakness

  can turn to strength.

  Telling is like laying out cloth so anyone can see

  thin or rough spots where she might have made

  a different choice. Blame is always close.

  Edmonia says, You know nothing about it.

  Ruth opens her mouth, turns her eloquent back.

  Her straight spine is parallel to a row of buttons

  that she manages alone every time.

  Verdict

  The hall is crowded. Is the world shrinking?

  The tight, still necks show judgments as sharp

  as those of the man in the robe, his pale hand by a gavel.

  The lawyer stands straight as a post, raises a thick book.

  The doctor never examined the contents of the patients’ bowels

  or stomachs. This medical text confirms that’s the only way

  to prove poisoning. Can the state of Ohio in good faith

  convict someone of attempted murder with no proof?

  Each word is a spider, catching Edmonia’s breath

  in its web. Edmonia looks at her lap. Once she was a child,

  winding loops of string between two pairs of hands,

  tugged in four directions. She spun swans opening wings,

  rivers colliding, and people turning to animals.

  Was that a stone or a door, land or sky?

  Guessing was part of the game.

  Candles, diamonds, cat’s eyes, fish, stars, ladders,

  and fences swallowed one another,

  until the pictures shredded like clouds in the wind.

  At last the judge meets the lawyer’s gaze.

  He dismisses the case for insufficient evidence.

  Edmonia ducks under cheers, cries, gasps, shouts

  of No! as if at the end of a game or fumbled magic act

  that continues to distort what’s seen or unseen,

  a girl stumbling into a hole.

  Father Keep shakes Mr. Langston’s hand, turns

  to Edmonia, warns, You must stay

  on your best behavior. Nothing can go amiss.

  People shove forward to shake her hand,

  pat her head or shoulders. Every touch feels dangerous.

  Beyond the shouts, silence stings like spoken judgments.

  Edmonia reaches for her crutches, which clatter as they fall.

  Boys bend to pick them up. Girls squeeze her arms.

  I’m all right, she says, her words swept off

  by the river of hands around her,

  the cheers as if there were no difference between

  lack of proof and innocence, which she still means to claim.

  This isn’t a victory, or even the end of a story.

  Her chance to speak is gone.

  The Pearls

  Late that afternoon in her room,

  Edmonia hears footsteps from the floor overhead.

  Voices cross like a mother’s and daughter’s.

  Drawers open and close. Helen must be packing

  a hair-curling rod, silk dresses, rose-painted cups.

  Edmonia hears only one pair of feet on the stairs.

  She’s surprised by the knock on her door,

  stunned that she walks over and lifts the latch.

  Helen doesn’t step in, but stands wearing

  a shawl and hat, her hands in her woolen muff,

  all ready to go. Edmonia almost shuts the door,

  but Helen steps forward. She whispers,

  I’m glad you said nothing. You won’t ever,

  will you? My father would kill me

  if he knew everything that happened.

  She draws a hand from the muff and holds

  out the string of pearls to Edmonia.

  The gems are white on the surface,

  crossed by the shadows and shine of water.

  Someone could see or lose herself in that shimmer.

  Edmonia keeps her hands still.

  They’re a gift, Helen explains,

  as if Edmonia didn’t speak this language.

  She says, I know what they are.

  Raising Her Voice
<
br />   Some snow melts. The first crow returns.

  It is the time when her aunts rolled up birchbark walls

  to drag to a spot where they could tap maple trees

  for sap to boil into sugar, turning the forest fragrant.

  Every day is a new trial.

  Edmonia’s neck turns stiff from the stares

  of students who sit behind her.

  Words split in her ears, blur before her eyes.

  She no longer needs crutches

  as oak leaves grow to the size of squirrel paws,

  the season to find a spot near a river

  to fish with nets and spears

  and plant squash and corn and beans.

  By summer, Edmonia walks without a limp.

  During the time of Leaves Turning, new girls move

  into the room upstairs. One night,

  Ruth says, I heard Helen and Seth are engaged.

  I suppose that’s to be expected, being discovered in a sleigh

  without a chaperone. He’s working for Helen’s father.

  Edmonia winces. He wanted to join the Union Army.

  But he didn’t. Ruth pats her hair like someone trying

  to stop a fire. And it’s a shame we need even boys like him.

  He didn’t really do anything wrong.

  He did nothing right. You’ve been so quiet

  these past months, Edmonia. It’s not like you.

  And it’s not like you to raise your voice.

  I didn’t know you were angry.

  You don’t see as much as you think you do.

  You’re not the only one who feels shut out.

  They see us as the same. Every bit of history they teach,

  they might as well say: You can look, but nothing

  belongs to you. They treat us like guests,

  but look under our beds. Why were we asked here

  if we were never meant to make this home?

  Edmonia stares. Finally she says, But you’re not like me.

  You win prizes for spelling and Greek grammar.

  Teach piano to the teachers’ daughters.

  No one ever accused you of anything,

  even of not doing your homework.

  Yes, I can play Mozart. But you’re not the only girl

  here who doesn’t know her father.

  My grandfather worked in a tavern to buy his three sons,

  then one daughter, my Aunt Rebecca.

  He never put down a dollar for my mother’s freedom.

  He blamed her for . . . Ruth chokes as if on a word

  she can’t say. It was my aunt who saved

  the one hundred and twenty-five dollars for me.

  New Year’s Day, 1863

  The old cannon in Tappan Square blasts.

  Standing on the chapel steps, Mr. Langston

  reads the Emancipation Proclamation:

  . . . the people shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.

  Students, teachers, and townspeople cheer, weep, shout,

  Forever free! They beg him to read the words again,

  then a third time, forgetting for a moment how the list

  of slain soldiers on the church door grows longer,

  forgetting the way won battles bring

  not just triumph but sorrow.

  A few weeks later, Ruth tells Edmonia, President Lincoln’s

  proclamation means colored men can enlist in Ohio soon,

  but the governor of Massachusetts wants them to muster

  for the Union Army now. Thomas is going to Boston to sign up!

  You must be proud. And afraid.

  He’d give his life for a chance to show the South

  what’s right and wrong. Ruth takes a deep breath.

  I just worry whether he can pull a trigger.

  I’ve never known a kinder man.

  He’ll have comrades, Edmonia says,

  while you wait alone.

  I’m not alone. But it’s hard to wait to hear

  how a story ends. And I’m sorry Thomas must interrupt

  his education. I promised him I’d stick with mine.

  Of course.

  The mistress back in Virginia used to wear a new pair

  of satin slippers for every ball, because we couldn’t get out

  all the scuff marks. One day I mean to buy

  my Aunt Rebecca satin shoes for dancing.

  When you’re a teacher. Edmonia picks up a pitcher.

  She cracks the thin coat of ice on top, pours a cup of water.

  Ruth sips as if nothing could be sweeter,

  as if she were thirstier than she knew.

  She whispers, Thomas kissed me.

  Did you ever know joy?

  Broken Colors

  Edmonia craves the smoky smell of drawing pencils,

  like a burned-down fire, and hardening clay,

  with its whiff of a pond bottom. She goes to the art room,

  where each mark on paper offers a new chance.

  She has nothing left but hunger for beauty,

  small as the tip of a paintbrush.

  She wishes the stove were lit,

  though if smoke rose she might not be alone.

  She smashes ice that sheathes

  a jar of water to rinse a paintbrush.

  She no longer draws goddesses, gods,

  or anyone in transformation.

  White people think metaphor belongs to them.

  She opens a cupboard with boxes

  printed with names, none hers.

  She reads them as if studying a map

  of places no one expects her ever to see.

  The shelves and boxes are divided

  like classrooms where walls come between

  art, poetry, and myth. In history class,

  teachers separate the dead from the living.

  All through the school, lines are drawn between

  right and wrong, white and colored, rich and poor,

  truth and lies, fact and dreams, courage and fear,

  what belongs to one person and what doesn’t.

  They forget that every time the wind blows,

  the world asks everyone to bend.

  She means to blend burnt sienna, carmine,

  and Prussian blue. A cold breeze interrupts.

  Mary Ellen and a girl she doesn’t know come

  through the door but stay by it.

  The girl with straw-colored braids stares

  at Edmonia and says, Everybody told me about you.

  She bends her head to whisper to Mary Ellen,

  then looks up and cries, You took my paints!

  I thought they were mine.

  Edmonia shuts the narrow box.

  The Braided Rug

  Father Keep’s wooden desk is a fortress.

  He and his wife fasten their gazes on pens

  lined up like soldiers.

  I didn’t take anything. Edmonia never again wants

  blocks of yellow ochre, cadmium blue, zinc white.

  Look in my room! Look anywhere.

  Not a single trustee believes you’re a thief.

  But we must consider the best interests of the school.

  Father Keep stands, picks up a poker, shifts a log

  that stirs the ashes. We aren’t telling you to go,

  but advising that you don’t come back next semester.

  Which is my last. Edmonia hears the tick

  of a clock, its Roman numerals ringed with gold.

  We hoped you’d make us proud. We gave you chances.

  We know some folks in Boston, friends of your people.

  Father Keep slips some books off a shelf. Mrs. Child has written

  much about the evils of slavery and wrongs done to Indians.

  As well as songs for children and “The American Frugal Housewife,”

  Mrs. Keep says. We expect she can use help around the house.

  Dear Lydia won’t complain, but her husband o
ften travels

  and owes money she struggles to repay.

  Father Keep says, There’s no disgrace in debt

  when money is lost to noble causes.

  His wife opens a book and reads: Shake carpets often,

  but spare the broom so carpets last.

  Take in the clothesline every night, lest damp air wear it down.

  Edmonia’s broken breath is an effort,

  instead of a simple exchange

  between her lungs and the world’s gift of air.

  Naturally, we hope our students will do more than clean houses.

  But these are hard times for everyone. You must think

  of the greater good. Father Keep stares at the braided rug

  as if it were a woven blanket spread before sightseers.

  There’s nothing left to sell and nothing saved.

  The Empty Drawer

  He wants you to be a maid! Ruth paces across

  their room. Her dress rustles, crisp as broken patience.

  He didn’t use that word. I’m to help around the house

  in exchange for room and board. You always said

  scrubbing floors is nothing to be ashamed of.

  I clean to pay for classes so I’ll never have to push

  a mop again. They won’t even let you stay

  long enough to get a diploma?

  I need to go where no one knows what happened.

  Edmonia looks out the window. She wishes she could

  camouflage herself like a white hare on snow,

  a brown toad by a tree trunk. She opens a drawer

  and grabs her pencils like a fistful of arrows.

  She packs her spare dress, her sewing basket,

  a mended comb, a nightgown; she doesn’t have much else.

  She says, I’ll start again.

  People can’t choose where they start or stop.

  Edmonia, we didn’t have mamas who told us

  we mattered, or pas who said:

  You can do what anyone else can

  or even what’s never been done.

  But if two girls can be family, let me say

  that I’m proud. You see more than most people.

  You can change things with your hands.

  Edmonia wonders if she’ll ever again hear

  another girl brush her hair, kneel on the floor,

  set clasped hands on a coverlet for prayer,

  breathe in a way that tells her she’s included

  in the entreaties. All she really wanted

  was one friend. She says, Come with me.

  You know I can’t. This is the only chance