There’s a sweet potato half in, half out of a jelly jar,
on a kitchen window sill, in water. Four toothpicks stick
into the sides of its belly to hold one half in and one half out.
A kind of voodoo, a kind of rebirth, where the vine grows out
from the tuber, glossy-leaved, trailing. And on the other side
of a smeary half dormer there’s a garden in decline, untended,
drying in a kind of last gasp, in drought, holding out for late rains
or the kindness of some tenant, a renter by the week of a studio
or an efficiency apartment, who’ll turn on the sprinkler system
for maybe an hour, someone who might have a green thumb,
someone whose ancestors were farmers maybe, maybe the same
kind-hearted soul who plunked the sweet potato in the jelly jar,
a large jar from one of those warehouse stores that sell mayo
by the gallon and beef by the side, a discounter who sells in bulk
to people who want to save big and to those who find another use
for food, a return on their return—that yam-like pumpkin-colored spud,
that rootstock, starchy and calorie jam-packed. The one with African
slave name from Haiti, a new-world food—something cheap, easy
to grow and store, and forgiving.