Testimony: Former Nigerian Slave by Ivy Alvarez

I was my mistress’s slave
- -that way my identity flew:
this breath in my chest
would knock the canvas edge
of the tent that shades
my mistress’s skin from the thin
burn of sun
as my own skin
browned

Again, she would say, and with my hands
I unstoppered the holes of pegs
- -those rough mouths filled with sand
as I swung the tent on its axis
my heels pivoting
to keep myself still

The heat was a brand
I spoke slave words with a slave tongue

but now my mistress is gone

What is this bed that is my own?
That cups my back with something like love?
Or this long, free swallow of milk
like wind at a feather’s edge?

My hands must touch a mirage
—the mirage touches me back

About the author

Ivy Alvarez is the author of Mortal (Red Morning Press, 2006). Her poetry appears in journals and anthologies in Australia, Canada, England, the Philippines, Republic of Ireland, Russia, Scotland, USA, Wales and online.

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