Heirloom (Old Poem / New Poem)

People sometimes ask how to know when a poem is "Done." I resist that term, actually; I think of poems as ideas and insights gathered to the consciousness of the poet. The text on the page (or as delivered live, in readings) is always just the best possible approximation the 'poem' available to that poet at the given moment. There's no one definitive version.

The practical advantage of that attitude is that I try to be easygoing about accepting other people's edits to my poems, or even typos in reproduction. Poems aren't cars; you can't ding their bodywork or crack their glass. Poems are clouds you get to ride for a little while, if you're lucky. Then the vapor yields to rain. Then you start over. 

All of which is to say that I revise freely, sometimes heavily, as part of a poem's journey from draft to magazine publication to appearing in a book. I published a variation on this poem in 2013 via the southern Foodways Alliance's Gravy. Same title. But when I hunkered down with history--one of the central organizing principles of this new collection--I wanted to adjust the focus. The result feels like a new poem.

Heirloom

Lo, twelve children born to a woman named Thankful

in Nampa, by the border between Idaho

and Oregon. Lo, two brothers drive to Miami

not knowing if their plan will work.

Lo, what were once waste scraps fed to the cows

now repackaged—the fry shavings sliced, spiced, and oiled.

Lo, a chef at the Fountainebleau takes the bribe.

Lo, Tater Tots are dished onto the tables

of the 1954 National Potato Convention and soon,

enshrined in the freezers of America. Three decades later,

the golden age of my childhood is a foil-lined tray

plattered with Ore-Ida product, maybe some salt, maybe

nothing but the hot anticipation of my fingertips.

Lo, my mother is an amazing cook and Lo,

my grandmother is a terrible one, but on the tinfoil plains

they are equal. I need you to understand

why my father will never enjoy a ripe tomato

glistening, layered in basil. Put away your Brandywines,

your Cherokee Purples, your Green Zebras.

Lo, as with spinach, as with olives, he tastes only

the claustrophobia his mother unleashed from cans

to feed four children on a budget. We talk little of this.

Lo, what is cooked to mush.

Lo, what is peppered to ash. Lo, the flavor

rendered as morning chore—that this, too, is a form of love.