Wintzell’s Oyster House
Before six seats and a trough of oysters,
before J. Oliver slathers the wall in homespun,
Charles Peters sells squash here, and canned beans;
he sells bed frames & dressers & side tables;
insurance against rising waters;
he sells whatever will send nine daughters and sons
through college. Because in 1891, a black man
can build two stories of clapboard for $2,000,
two blocks from the Creole Fire Station
stocked with fast horses, racetrack rejects,
because the first truck to arrive on the scene
is the only one that gets paid.
Fifty-some years later, a merchant marine
offers West Indies by way of Mobile:
crab lumped, layered in fine-chopped onion
& the kiss of Wesson oil,
& the slap of iced water & how God
means for salad to be served, on a saltine.
This is the last all-wood joint on Dauphin Street.
The secret is in the cider vinegar.
A hundred jaws of minor angels macerate the haul.
An earlier version of this poem appeared in GRAVY,
the Southern Foodways Alliance’s quarterly journal.
![Sandra Beasley](https://baltimorepostexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/userphoto/557.thumbnail.jpg)
Sandra Beasley is the author of three poetry collections—Count the Waves, I Was the Jukebox, and Theories of Falling—and a memoir, Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life. Honors for her work include a 2015 NEA fellowship, the Center for Book Arts Chapbook Prize, and three DCCAH fellowships. She lives in Washington, D.C., and teaches with the University of Tampa low-residency MFA program. (Photo credit – Milly West)