Hayden's Ferry Review

jordan taliha mcdonald's trials

at the Salem Witch museum

a motorized black doll sat in

a police cell 

and i thought to

myself there is no such

thing 

as a pretend prison

 

even when i left the museum

i remained in its grasp the

witches were long dead but i

could not shake Tituba 

what of her, 

her disputed blackness

her indisputable slavery

her cursed sharing 

her transatlantic trials

walking through Salem 

in the night 

i knew myself to be 

so easily tried 

so swiftly hung 

i walked with a group 

and walked alone 

there were no homes 

that would welcome me 

no front lawn 

i should mistake for solid ground 


no white fence 

that could not 

stake me


——————

Jordan Taliha McDonald is a writer, editor, cultural worker, and student from the D.C. area. Her essays, criticism, fiction, and poetry have been published in Huffington Post, Artsy, Bitch Media, The Offing, Africa is a Country, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Meetinghouse Magazine, and more. In 2021, she was awarded the Academy of American Poets Prize at Dartmouth College.