Matthew E. Henry

Poetry

MEH is Matthew E. Henry, a multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominated poet. The author of Teaching While Black (Main Street Rag, 2020), he has recent and forthcoming works in The Amethyst Review, Bryant Literary Review, Dappled Things, Ploughshares, Poemeleon, The Radical Teacher, Solstice, Spiritus, Tahoma Literary Review, and The Windhover. MEH is an educator who received his MFA from Seattle Pacific University, yet continued to spend money he didn’t have completing an MA in theology and a PhD in education. His work can be found on MEHpoeting.com>.

 

mannish water

when one of our new white neighbors asked what he was eating and my mother—smiling in Black, Gold, and Green—replied curried goat, I saw visions of petting zoos and satanism stroke the side of his face, the hand which held his fork, before he turned and discreetly reached for a napkin, searched for what looked anonymously safe on the table. ackee and saltfish. stew peas. callalloo. breadfruit. I saw the banquet spread, the love-offering my family raised to be welcomed into a New England suburbia whose gardens are for show—not salads or tea. I heard their names with paler ears. bully beef and cabbage. tripe. chicken-foot soup. oxtail.