Slowcookery

By Amy L. Bernstein

“Because when it comes to truly explaining racial injustice in this country, the table should never be set quickly” – Nikole Hannah-Jones, “What is Owed,” New York Times Magazine, 2020

I stand on the far shore of the fast-moving
Combahee River,
opposite the Collective,

afforded a distant glimpse through a lead-paned window
into a snug, low-slung house on the riverbank where

Barbara, Demita, Beverly,
Sharon, Cheryl, Margo, Gloria
are in the kitchen
crowded hip to hip
making dinner to please themselves

the roast has just gone in to
marinate in its juices,

the carrots and potatoes will grow
fork-tender

but not for hours,
not until the pan is bubbling

I see them drinking wine and dancing
slowly
the river moves fast,
conveying time along wet ribs

and the ever-echoing shots of Harriet’s raid

but inside the house,
all is marination

the womyn are steeped in life—
schooled and schooling others

they slip in and out of the
dining room,

setting the table for dinner
one plate cup fork knife at a time,

for nothing about this meal is
taken for granted,
handed out,
handed over

it is so-so-so not easy
yet will be savored
by them
in their own good time

as the Combahee parades
its flowing witness.

Amy L. Bernstein writes stories, essays, and poems that let readers feel while making them think. Her novels include The Potrero Complex, the award-winning The Nighthawkers, Dreams of Song Times, and Fran, The Second Time Around. Amy’s poetry has appeared in Yellow Arrow Journal, Loch Raven Review, Lost Boys Press, Parliament Literary Journal, Passaic-Voluspa, She Is Kindred, and elsewhere, and in an anthology chapbook, Baltimore, I (want to) Love You.

Image credit: “Through Forests, Through Rivers, Up Mountains” by Jacob Lawrence 1967, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.

Editor’s notes:

Read about Harriet Tubman and the Combahee Ferry Raid of 1863.

Read the “Combahee River Collective Statement.”

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