Radha Marcum

SPEAKING TO AMERICA

Testimony of Christine Blasey-Ford, September 26, 2018
Cotton Mather, Letter to John Cotton, August 5, 1692

I went up a narrow set of stairs

witches lately executed

pushed from behind into a bedroom

impudently demanding of God

music turned up louder

vindication of their innocency

pushed onto the bed and Brett got on top of me

witches who made an ample, amazing confession

running his hands over my body

of all their villainies

tried to get away his weight heavy

there have come in other confessors

tried to take off my clothes drunk

yea they come in daily

tried to yell for help

entertained with the horrible tidings

put his hand over my mouth

of an earthquake when on a fair day

to stop me from screaming

the sea suddenly swelled, the earth shook

terrified me the most

and broke in many places

hard to breathe and I thought that Brett

swallowed up, the sea came rolling over

was accidentally going to kill me

behold, an earthquake speaking to America

RADHA MARCUM is the author of two collections. Bloodline received the 2018 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award in Poetry and Pine Soot Tendon Bone (Word Works, 2024) won the Washington Prize. She lives in Colorado, where she writes the Poet to Poet newsletter and teaches at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop.