‘Sasha Fells the Wildwood’
— Nix Thérèse
My family camped out this past weekend in the Smokies, and in order to keep critters that could eat through the trees out of the environment, the site only allowed pre-treated wood for fires. Here we are, pretty vulnerable to attack in the woods, but the trees of all things get protection? Sometimes I can’t shake the feeling that trees may not have been as bloodless as they appear. We were in Tennessee after all, passing trucks & shops that proudly displayed the Confederate flag and those whose eyes lingered too long for comfort.
I muttered parts of ‘Sasha Fells the Wildwood’ to shake off my anxiety, especially when the site fell to pitch darkness, because the speaker not only knows the long history of trees and violence against black bodies, but is actively breaking that connection. We’re spinning in her paranoia of death, even while holding the axe. But she channels this feeling into the chopping that creates “a clean cut” from all “its noosed unions” to skin like hers. The repetition of “I’m swinging this axe” throughout is almost a battle cry: the speaker doesn’t just want to do it, but wants others to know why she’s chopping. The callout also implicates others in this history, asks “how are you addressing this?”
She shows us what’s tree-made in the house and mentions that the trees “shifted shape.” Yet these trees are still not harmless. Notice how at least half of her list involves items that could mortally injure you if you were thrown from them, and the nightstand & vanity feel especially treacherous in their ability to house a gun. Danger can lurk in literally any crevice… The short & jarring stanzas throughout pour us into a new space in each until we’re cut and flipped out, much like the wood. In this mirroring, we can feel the slice.
In her dreamscape, she encounters herself “and Jesus / pulling nails out of our feet” and Coretta “calling for Martin / to come down from a sycamore.” Here, even your body is turned against you as its weight makes it impossible for you to survive on the cross or in the noose. You’ll always be pierced or marked, and the forest will always be silent & “smirking with no mouth.” Isn’t that enough to make you pause?