Collard Greens & Ham Hocks or What to Do When the Bills Are Due
INGREDIENTS
3 bunches collards 1 chopped onion
one dab bacon fat Lawry's, pepper, salt
smoked hocks apple cider vinegar
chicken stock the really deep pot
DIRECTIONS
1. ablute the bunches, free the greens
from their bitter spines then twine
them ‘round your fingers, fret
the rugged ends—your Daughters
edges leafing from their box braids already,
the dark hairs wildin’ like vines.
you twist
their tresses,
plant your tired thumbs
against their roots
they always bloom too soon
2. tease the skin back, watch
the onion flirt open, hungry
for touch. affix the knife. dice,
a sting singing loudly in your cuts—like a Daughter
when she asks why you’re never around
on holidays, at family dinners,
at school plays, birthdays, her adolescence
an album of snapshots without you
3. & it isn’t because you don’t miss them
though you have wanted less
have even enjoyed
the salt broth your distance makes but
they are always with you
& you hook each minimum-wage minute on
the sharp end of their frowns—
4. start a pot as deep as your empty pocket
sauté the onions, a clot of grease leaping
in the heat. toss the ham hocks in
the chicken stock, the salt
pork pearled into fat, vinegar
& spice—twice
y’all dined in candlelight, your Daughters
haloed & sweat-strung, you
braising all day,
but tonight y’all will eat in heaps—greens
spilling wild as an animal—greens
like a grief come home, just spilling
past pot & powder milk pantry, past
sparkless socket—an eagerness of greens
smearing down every wall you’ve built.
Copyright © 2024 by Diamond Forde. Originally published in Callaloo (Volume 42,
Number 1, Winter 2024). Reprinted by permission of the poet. Copyright © 2024 by Diamond Forde. Published by permission of the poet.