Okra

My mother stewed you

with onions and tomatoes

then rice and chicken stock

to simmer for hours

so when I came in from the sandlot

with some bloodied arm or face

your steam was a counterplay.

It took me a while to savor

the slide of your slimy pods

down my throat—

your seeds rolled

the roof of my mouth—

the pods floated like caïques

in the broth.

But I came to see your hieroglyphics

in red clay

because Black women sizzled you up

in the big house

to rebut the theft,

to smuggle in home:

canoes of the Niger—

dug-out tree trunks,

pirogues of the heart

of rushing water—

origin of gumbo:

ok u ru in Igbo—

words on the roof of my mouth—

anagrams in broth.