Montgomery, Alabama
I made this proposition to the owners of the negroes: If you will give me Anarcha and Betsey for experiment, I agree to perform no experiment or operation on either of them to endanger their lives, and will not charge a cent for keeping them, but you must pay their taxes and clothe them. . . . The first patient I operated on was [Tom Zimmerman’s slave] Lucy. . . . Anarcha became the subject of [many] experiment[s]. . . . [the last of which] was the thirtieth operation [I] performed on [her].
— J. Marion Sims, M.D., LL.D., The Story of My Life, 1884
Lucy, Betsey, & Anarcha,
I’ve just learned about the scalpels
you met, & want your voices to harrow
these united states. I’ve met eight myself,
all under the sweet sleep of ether
withheld from you,
so the ore that cut through my
belly for cyst, hernia, & fibroid,
blockage of my bowel,
for ovary, gall bladder, & finally—
the source of so much joy
& trouble—uterus,
erased my pain
& the broken organs
I could live without.
Deftly wielded, the steel did
what it was made for.
I never gave a thought
to how your compulsory
sacrifices birthed the science
that delivered my life—
I didn’t even know,
until now, as I walk through
this exhibit & the lacquered
plaque teaches me your stories,
how gynecology & its vital
remedies came to be.
I’d only had a vague awareness
of things, raised white in an affluent
south Jersey suburb, where I was taught
about slavery & Jim Crow but nothing
about Harriet Jacobs or Sojourner Truth,
convict leasing or redlining,
or you,
told nothing about masters
bringing you to the table
to kneel, lean on your elbows, head in hands.
What did I know of such diabolical sweat
in that humid, Alabama room
while I convalesced in my parents’ Cape Cod
complete with master suite?
Now I want to rage
against the way Sims plotted his path
& slipped his fingers
into your sacred vault,
how you had to feel every slice
in your molecular core.
How you reared up, bit into cloth.
How your eyes must’ve begged
him to stop. How you
miraculously survived.
I don’t know how to handle the fact
that over a century later, I still benefit
from his calculating breath
that must have stolen yours over
& over again without mercy
or regret. I want to carve myself
out of this story but can’t.
Your truth has risen from the grave
where clover like scars
creep across the whole terrain.
–
Julie L. Moore is the author of four poetry collections, including, most recently, Full Worm Moon, which won a 2018 Woodrow Hall Top Shelf Award and received honorable mention for the Conference on Christianity and Literature’s 2018 Book of the Year Award. An eight-time Pushcart Prize nominee and previous contributor to Whale Road Review, Julie has recently placed poems in African American Review, Image, Quartet, SWWIM, Thimble, and Verse Daily.