*Adapted from "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" (1861) by Harriet Jacobs
A garret nine feet long and seven wide
just three high, sloping ceiling to the trap
door, not for human life but rats and mice
where neither light nor air slipped through this gap
where vermin shared my mattress as I lay
where ev’ry breath was gasping precious time
where peepholes gave the only glimpse of day
but better trapped than chained if freedom’s mine!
I’d suffer hellish heat and nature’s fiends
They lash my skin far gentler than a man
No toil, no whip, no bruise or brand or hounds!
I grip my fate in these frostbitten hands!
For seven years I lay, and God I asked
To know the day we might be free at last
