Soul Food
I know collard greens
sizzled down in lard.
Eatonville reared
six kids to a unit,
umber cabins in a row,
the kitchen making do.
ancestors say: grub on
cornbread, buttermilk,
stretch it, make it last.
from smokehouse scraps, a diet is made,
no clean white cuts of meat.
peanuts ground down, worked through,
same way, different south.
breadcrumbs and flour
holding the place of meat.
pork cutlets steaming,
settling into oil.
as a warning:
a generational line of
busted arteries and thick blood.