where are the potatoes

Where are the potatoes, she wondered, watching

Heat shimmer across her corn block, its leaves

Each rustling against other, turning brown.

Right here they were planted, next bed over,

Evenly spaced, in two long lines, eyes up



And covered in soft soil, mixed with compost --

Really exactly as she had done these fifty years.

Early next morning, she reached for her mason's hammer,



The experiment with the spud hook having failed, and

Heaving her old bones down onto her gardening stool

Exactly at the end of that mysterious weedy bed;



Pulled block after block of solid hexagonal clod

Over, busting up each as she went, feeling for

That coolness she knew as round starch balls

All her life she'd depended on. It's not 

That she hadn't watered and weeded, no,

Or fought those gophers well, newly arrived.

Earth could not drink for once, it seemed.

Some spuds appeared. They were even



Smaller than those from last year. Some felt

Hollow. Some were cracked. Some were

Even green with poisons though they'd grown



Well deep enough never to have seen sun.

Oh, well, she thought, I'll take what I can get;

Now we'll have barley for every other soup, with 

Dandelion to help stretch out my kale. This

Earth, she told herself, never did all,

Really even in days of rain. Barley I bought.

Ere I go forth from here as buried flesh or ash, I'll

Do as I have done: work with what is.