Mrs. Dinah talks about her kitchen


Mrs. Dinah Talks about Her Kitchen



(after a poem Clint Smith leaked from Uncle Tom's Cabin )







Honey , let me tell you.  That cat-haired Ms. Ophelia had the gall ----

the gall I swear ---to duck-walk her behind into my kitchen

with question and jingling keys.  Not knowing how to address a lady

proper-like, she  Yankee-screeched:



"What's the drawer for, Dinah? why is the nutmeg

in conversation with the Baptist hymn book?"



Ain't got the sense God granted the goose.

Don't know nutmeg can keep company with garlic,

being as how herbs and spices is all God's children.

Don't know pinto beans from coffee and poisoned cognition

about the sacred, that shall ---mark my language --

finally end the enslavements.

Soon and very sooner they will see

how Africans role down South.

Likewise up North.



What audacity to ask why

my hair grease be talking to onions.

Tain't none of her business if it do.



I am ---truth be told ---the soul of order

and can make a fine dinner of chaos.



I know my place now, and in a future

she best keep her Catholic  opinions of herself to herself.

Elsewise, I might loose my religion in a flash of redemption

and bring Oshun's water to this here plantation.





Jerry W. Ward, Jr.            August 7, 2017










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