Celeriac
       

Artery-twisted
on the outside,
the torn, blood-draggled glove
of a poor ogre's heart,
the most pointlessly
neglected vegetable.

Bathe this knotted beauty, ancestor
of the ancient ways of the earth.
Slip the clots of dirt
from this tangle of hairy tubules that fed
green stalks in the rain.

It labored all year to grow,
got shovel-cut,
hardened
into the clenched face
of a fist, as if defying Dante with its uncried
cry, hunched so long by dust-drunken bulbs
in the cellar, unable to recall
the sun's heat on flesh.

When this black thing emerged, sky-
pierced, in the winter
market, the earth still refused to burn,
having turned
to stone, like the white meat of this root,
all its assertive, refreshing flavor

hidden in a monster heart.

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Copyright © 2016 Stephen Massimilla All rights reserved
from Cooking with the Muse
Tupelo Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission