Making Greens
What is this called? I ask; she says picking
greens, then adds, this is old school. We’ve
just started, and I’m told it will take all day,
we stand in a corner, each leaning
into a hip. The way only mamas
do. A habit we learn, making space
for the babies we carry. The histories,
the secrets we can hardly hold. Time
disappears. Now we are laughing. Now
I am listening to the origin story of
the greens, her greens. Of her grandma
who taught her. You can’t do this alone,
she says. I never had a grandmother to
teach me greens, I don’t tell her, just one
who taught me the right kind of alcoholic
asshole to avoid, I don’t tell her. She says
it’s good to mix your greens; today we’ve
got collards and mustard. We start with
the collards, with their tough green
softness, with the crunch of the blade
as it comes down on the cutting board.
Then we move on to the mustard greens,
feeling their wet clean frilliness slip through
fingers, and the double-wide sink she fills
with the greens. You have to salt and rinse
five times at least she says, to pick out the
bugs she says, and the dirt and despite my
impatience to move on to the next step, she
will not relent, will not put any dirty gritty
greens in the pot, already simmering with
smoked turkey meat and onion and garlic.
I put my vegetarian face over the pot and
inhale; better than sage, this scent soothes
the soul. I inhale generations of grandmothers,
not mine, but shared, all picking and stirring
and sifting through grit to feed the ones we
love. We do this as women. Come together,
to clean to help to share our food. And stories,
and we stir it all up, sprinkle on some spicy
peppers and garlic and let it simmer and let
the house be filled with our labor. And hours
later, when I reach my fork in the pot to taste
my first-ever bite, I taste more than collards
and mustard and smoked turkey; I taste embrace,
bow my head humbled. And feel the cayenne
burn its way down.
Tara Zafft is a poet who explores themes of motherhood, belonging, war, and personal and collective trauma. Her work has appeared in Rumors Secrets and Lies, Poems about Abortion, Pregnancy and Choice, Write-Haus, Aether Avenue Press, The San Diego Poetry Annual, Vita and the Woolf Literary Journal, and Dumbo Press. In 2024, she was awarded the Moonlit Getaway Poetry Prize. Tara holds a BA in Russian Literature from UC San Diego and a Ph.D. in Modern Languages from the University of Bath, UK.
