One Christmas we stayed a Diane's beach house
and ate Christmas dinner outside at Pretty Michelle's.
Woodie brought a pot of beet tops out of his garden.
He grew beets, kohlrabi, and Swiss chard. He gave us a painting
of black sharecroppers and black angels and Brenda gave him and Dot
a fruitcake from Aunt Myrtle's recipe that was like a pound cake
with fruit and nuts in it. Including dates and apricots.

Brenda and I were still living in Atlanta.
I knew I wanted to realize my pulp-ghetto ideal
where I could grow a garden, eat mullet caught with
a cast-net in a local bayou, and go hear live acoustic string band music
on the weekend, at The Red Bar, say. And now, I have done it. Well, Brenda grows
the garden. But she just planted collard greens and Savoy cabbage. I feed the chickens.
When we kill the roosters I make borscht out of the chicken stock, with beets.
I am a beet poet, not a beat poet.

State law,
and common decency require
that he eat steak--
and I make do
with lunchroom beets.

Hey, Bossman...
what you say--
easy pickin's:
ain't nobody here
but us chickens.