Illustration by Morgan Maurer, 2011
Christine & Millie McCoy, 1851-1912
tear open the breast and heart to tell
biological truth: no: the black, deformed
birth: yes: slavery of the interior
unlock the shackled spine to show
in sixty-one years monstrosity: yes:
she never left my side the fusion of vertebrae
the malformation of blood and bone
collision? no our walk, a side-step
the backbone braided dance: a waltz
born 1851 as slaves: the body
twice betrayed: the sky held the sun: no, moon
“MOON AND SUN UNITED ON STAGE”
illusion? no: miracle: the sisters
merged, their voices layered like the nightingale’s
sheath of feathers, light hitting its wings
breaking up light – negress? no: they are
crimson blazing, their song quick and agile
as their hearts’ pumping: yes: one beat:
one pulse: one soul, two thoughts, from darkness,
a final note dividing the air: the sudden outward
breath rushing to fill the other’s departure
Shara Lessley is a former Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry. Her awards include an O’Connor Fellowship from Colgate University, the Gilman School’s Tickner Fellowship, the Diane Middlebrook Poetry Fellowship from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, and a “Discovery”/The Nation Prize. Shara’s writing has appeared in Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review, Threepenny, Black Warrior Review, The Southern Review and Alaska Quarterly Review, among others. She was the recipient a 2009-2010 Artists’ Fellowship from the North Carolina Arts Council, and currently lives in Amman, Jordan. “Two-Headed Nightingale” first appeared in the journal Gulf Coast.
Read an interview with Shara here.