My people were potato people
Doughy peasants who stooped
To plant, then pick, potatoes
Resourceful to eat the lowly
tuber
Boiled into thin soup
Day after day as sustenance
Over time, my people
Came to resemble their life
source
Lumpy bodies sheathed in brown
muslin
Polish women in babushkas
Held potatoes defiantly in their
hands
A small sharp knife making swift
cuts
Once I dreamed of Nana’s latke
recipe
And that winter morning made
Perfect potato pancakes
Potato people are bygone
No longer hunched in fields
Filled with suspicious eyes
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