“…the hyssop that springeth out of the wall…”
— I Kings 4:33

The flecks greening skin after cutting collards
Are good as tattoos leafing my blood-tree of veins,
Mapping these hands I got from my fathers,
Their time-chipped cords of busy life writ plain.

Our months are marked by brassicas,
Or at least by something that grows everywhere.
Not named for ‘collared’ but ‘kohl-wort’—laziness
And time chaw our familiar words sere.

Smells of quick rot vinegar-purged
From the sink after washing; then the cymbal-roll blade
Terse through the crisp webbing lurches;
Then side meat, onions, a garlic incense raised.

A corpus of knowledge: someone was first,
By frontier craft prodding a squamous stalk.
“Can we eat this?” they ask, and the years cry, “Yes.”
Add love, and three hours, and meat—and decent salt.