Canada West, Frontenac, City of Kingston
District No. 6, part Rideau Ward.

Seven souls listed,
my ancestors enumerated
with tallies and ticks,
a one-storey brick house,
a horse in the yard.

Given names penned in
almost illegible cursive
claiming the whole column and
most of the left margin—
people that couldn’t be
crammed into this
colonial template.

And the clearest section,
a list of seven uppercase ems,
their delicate overstrokes
written with even pressure,
each a well-practiced,
single movement
with crisp ink.
Black ink.

M
is for mother,
with her husband and children.

M
is for member,
each part of the household.

M
is for maker,
to cook and sew dresses.

M
is for migration,
a life north of the border.

M
is for many,
the histories, the places—
Virginia, the Caribbean, New York, Ontario, the unknown before that.

M
is for movement,
it runs in the family.

M
is for Black and white—one of the ways they used to say it.
One of the ways they sometimes still do.

Source

“1861 Census of Canada,” database (on-line) with images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.ca; accessed 21 June 2020), imaged enumeration form, Census Returns For 1861, Roll: C-1022. Archibald Wilkinson, 60 years old, and household; Library and Archives Canada; Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Note: The 1861 census occurred before Canadian Confederation, thus it is a compilation of separate provincial censuses.

Samantha Jones (she/her) is mixed Black Canadian and European settler and lives and writes in Calgary, Alberta on Treaty 7 territory. She is a literary magazine enthusiast with poetry published in CV2, Grain, MixedMag, New Forum, Room, and elsewhere. Find her on Twitter: @jones_yyc.

Image by Tim Rüßmann @timaesthetic