Benkum Art
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A Second Behind

Two Black African women sit in a loose circle of mismatched plastic chairs and wooden benches in the packed-earth yard of a Zimbabwean community hall, several chairs around them left empty; the nearer woman, turned three-quarter toward the other, has a single tear tracked down her cheek as her composure gives way, while the second woman sits further back in soft shadow, head bowed, hands resting loose and open in her lap; the two are not touching.

I feel it a second after she does. That’s still fast enough to break me.

I don’t notice I’m crying until she goes still across the circle. I can’t look straight at her. I don’t have to.

On September 23, 2026, U.S. Ambassador Pamela Tremont announces that Washington’s health programs in Zimbabwe, including the allowances that pay community health workers, will end this month, after Zimbabwe declined a new health agreement over data-sharing and sovereignty terms. “We respect Zimbabwe’s sovereign decision,” she says. Nobody in this yard voted on it.

Some of the chairs are empty today. I just sit a second behind her, and let my face catch up.