Boston, Massachusetts<\/p>\n
A boatswain on an English slaver, he threw Saint Martinsville, Louisiana<\/p>\n They brought Louisiana\u2019s only chair Saint Martinsville, Louisiana<\/p>\n The Times<\/em> reporters asked him to describe His father smashed his gravestone into slivers These three poems were previously published in Threepenny Review<\/em>.<\/p>\n JILL McDONOUGH has published poems in Slate, Threepenny Review, <\/em>and Poetry<\/em>. The recipient of fellowships and grants from the Boston Athanaeum, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the National Endowment for the Arts, she is currently a fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.<\/p>\n (c) copyright 2005, Jill McDonough; author retains all rights.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" July 12, 1726: William Fly Boston, Massachusetts A boatswain on an English slaver, he threw his masters overboard, was caught within the week. In prison, he refused all food and drink, except for rum. Refused to forgive his enemies, or say he had: No. I won\u2019t dy with a lye in my mouth. He swore […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"parent":24,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/37"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/37\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/37\/revisions\/39"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nhis masters overboard, was caught within
\nthe week. In prison, he refused all food
\nand drink, except for rum. Refused to forgive
\nhis enemies, or say he had: No. I
\nwon\u2019t dy with a lye in my mouth<\/em>. He swore all the way
\nto the scaffold, wished the Goddamned ship would fly
\naway with devils, cursed himself, and the day
\nhe was born, and her that bare him<\/em>, and heaven, the God
\nwho judged him, the man who turned him in. They prayed
\nfor his repentance. He offered scorn, then awed
\nthe crowd with advice to the hangman on his trade:
\nhe tied the knot himself. They let him sway,
\nthen tarred his body, and gibbeted him in the bay.<\/p>\nMay 3, 1946: Willie Francis<\/h3>\n
\nin a pickup from Angola into Saint
\nMartinsville Parish, to the Court House, where
\na fifteen-year-old colored boy had lain
\non straw for months. Jailhouse on the second floor:
\nDeath kindly took the elevator. Wires
\nwere tossed from dynamo to window. Four
\nmen setting up the chair passed flasks, dead tired
\nand innocent of amps. They called the priest,
\nand pulled the switch, and thought he\u2019d die. He shook
\nand lurched and gasped\u2014You\u2019re not supposed to breathe!<\/em>
\nThey shut it down, freed him from straps and hood.
\nThen Willie Francis stood up without help
\nand\u2014miracle, miracle\u2014walked back to his cell.<\/p>\nMay 9, 1947: Willie Francis<\/h3>\n
\nthe taste of death. Cold peanut butter<\/em>. Fair
\nstars, little speckles: pink and green, like shines
\nin a rooster\u2019s tail<\/em>. He said God fool\u2019d with the chair<\/em>.<\/p>\n
\nof granite. Hundreds wrote divine intervention, <\/em>
\nhow gold electrodes would corrode <\/em>and silver
\nwires short if they tried to kill that boy again.
\nLike Daniel in the lion\u2019s den; those men
\nin Nebuchadnezzar\u2019s furnace; unusual; cruel;
\ndouble jeopardy. None of these could save him.
\nAt noon the chair was ready, voltage full.
\nHe said everything is all right<\/em> and died
\nwithout pink stars, green, anything divine.<\/p>\n