Descendants

                                            My mother picks bunches of collard greens.
                             Tearing the leaves away from their thick spines.
               She tosses them in a pot of chicken broth,
two browned ham hocks, her small handful of salt.

                                            My grandma pulls the little pouch with the neck
                              and giblets from the turkey’s cavity,
              spreads the contents on the cutting board, says, Look.
The little heart looks like a little heart.

                                             I know the Lord will make a way, oh yes
                              she sings under her breath. She’s constantly
               singing the spirituals like if she stops,
Jesus won’t listen once she starts again.

                                             Three Black women or so I think, deeming
                              myself grown up and a maker. But I
               know nothing of being a woman yet
and only know Blackness as the midnight

                                             clip on Howard’s public TV station,
                              a video with Black artists singing	
               Freedom, freedom, and Lou Gossett saying,
at the end, Keep hope alive, and I shiver.

                                             Just then the greens simmer. Their sulfur smell
                              in the oscillating fan. Grandma dices
               the liver. I’m holding my wrist. The heart
glistens. Even when cooked, it tastes of strength—

                                             earthy, metallic in the turkey’s jus,
                              the roux, broth, the cut-up hard boiled eggs.
                The gravy in its pot, the turkey ready.
The kitchen warm, damp, the one window fogged.