Our Quarantine Story

^{after Dorothea Grossman}

During the pandemic, after he was laid off, it was his idea
to forage for edible weeds around Queens when our food grew scarce.

From the stoop, I would watch him crouched on one knee,
his bare hands between telephone poles,

pulling up green stars from the control joints
under our mailbox full of clover mites & commercial flyers.

I almost forgot how sprawl could be so quiet.

When he returned inside, he rinsed off the stalks,
placed a rolled lot on his tongue and then on mine.

He mentioned how “sticky” foods could be a delicacy
in other cultures, as I turned my back and coughed them out.

And later in the evening, he read to me about how
indigenous women prevented pregnancy by drinking

cleaver tea, as he handed me a tall cup of it swirling with honey.

Copyright © 2022 by Michelle Whittaker. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 31, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“I was reading Aimee Nezukumatathil’s collection Oceanic, which references an enchanting love poem by Dorothea Grossman. Her distinct form encouraged me to record a place and time during the pandemic lockdown when my partner and I were concerned about our resources or lack thereof. At the surface level, the poem is an anecdote inspired by the observations of a beloved forager looking for edible plant life around New York City. However, my underlying concern is whether or not such a landscape can truly provide a perpetual sanctuary of natural resources. And, if not, how might this affect us and future generations?”
—Michelle Whittaker