Rather than a church prison with nun
guards, a military prison held me. I tied my soldier’s clothes tightly round my
body with dozens of cords to protect myself. There is no record of what they
did to me. But, are such records kept. Frustrated that I could not be broken, the
tribunal used my clothes against me. The military clothes I wore to lead the
French army to victory over England at Orléans. Those clothes were the basis of
the charge that I dressed like a man. What is it to be dressed like a man. Were
my captors dressed thusly or were they dressed as rapists. Executioners. The
English, their French collaborators, the Burgundians took me to the marketplace
in Rouen and burned me at the stake before a crowd estimated at 10,000. I was 19
years old. Some 30 years later, the people of France declare me innocent of all
charges. Designate me a martyr. 500 years later, they canonize me. My heart
survived the fire unaffected. I am no one’s saint, but my father Jacques’ and my
mother Isabelle’s steadfast daughter.
Jami Macarty is the
author of the full-length poetry collection The Minuses (February 2020) in The Mountain/West Poetry Series, published by The Center
for Literary Publishing at Colorado State University, and three chapbooks of
poetry: Instinctive Acts (Nomados Literary Publishers,
2018), Mind of Spring (Vallum
Chapbook Series, 2017), winner of the 2017 Vallum Chapbook Award,
and Landscape of The Wait (Finishing Line Press, 2017). She teaches poetry and poetics at Simon Fraser University, mentors
writers privately, and edits the online poetry journal The Maynard.
the
Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan
