Koperek
 
Dill anchors the kitchen, pervasive,
charms and tethers the home.
 
Caviars potatoes, aniseeds the soup,
freshens fish, wilts yoghurt and twarog.
 
Sold in feathered bunches from gnarled fingers,
skin wrinkled over birch wood, bent in the wind.
 
Hands held embarrassed over sunken grins,
teeth lost in lipless mouths, lost to warring spouses.
 
Sitting on upturned buckets, legs spread wide under skirts
shucking beans, gossiping fortunes and illnesses.
 
Grandmothers corral granddaughters to peel vegetables,
anoint each dish with a breeze from Polish gardens.
 
I swallow my homesickness with a grimace.
Dill chokes me on its way down.

Monica Piercy

 
If you have any thoughts about this poem, Monica Piercy would be pleased to hear them