When the Reckoning Comes

by LaTanya McQueen

They chose this, always this, because they knew it was better to drown in the rivers and swamps. To meet the sanctuary of wild animals who would tear their flesh to bits. Choosing to end themselves rather than go back, because at least death would be at their own hand, and there was freedom in that choice,

Those who stayed behind found their own ways to resist. A burned field at night meant no crops to harvest come morning, and a burned barn meant no crops for their master to sell. To slow down work they ruined themselves, since a broken leg couldn’t hoe a field. Broken fingers couldn’t pick tobacco leaves. Over and over they suffered the pain of fractured bones, of mutilated flesh. They’d always known their weapons were their bodies. They stuffed cotton roots down their throats. Forced down turpentine and indigo to make the life within stop. The path to resistance was through what their bodies could do, and so they found ways to refuse at every turn.