The Potato

 

Not so long ago, I, like so many, took a DNA test, The result, quite unexpectedly, revealed that  I was about 35% of Celtic origin, basically from Wales, but Celtic nevertheless. I’d like to reprint here a poem I wrote long ago; maybe I was on to something. In any case, I loved visiting Ireland.

 

 
The Potato
 
What looks like a meteor
lands every night on our plates:
a light-brown to purple moon
 
scarred by a life-struggle fought
in a sunless cradle-grave
a few crow’s feet under the Earth.
 
Close-up, the skin is a brown sky
With blind stars, like galaxies
Spirally arranged; dark buds
 
On axils of aborted leaves
waiting for a single chance
to shoot up into space.
 
We eat them smothered
In butter or gravy, American
as frozen apple pie;
 
I owe my citizenship
to a tragic lack of spuds
in 1840s Ireland;
 
raised on elemental things
whose source is ancient supernovae
light-years away from Earth,
 
tubers, swollen stolen-ends
of the genus Solanum,
peeled then fried or boiled,
 
where I come from, what I am,
lands every night on my fork:
a side dish, the starch of the world.