GOOSE FOOT

Chenopodium, the mealy leaf
like the wet leather of a goose foot
grubbed out of the garden on bended knee,
the small, green, understated flowers, these
are what our Neanderthal cousins laid
in wreaths on the bones of their dead
caked in the ochre flesh of the earth
or circled in stones in deep caves.
Lambs quarters, pig weed, fat hen,
not showy for approval, perhaps
to sustain in a shadowy afterlife,
yarrow, cornflower and ragwort,

eternal amaranth.

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