I used to keep

potatoes in my cellar

in brown bags. But

they grew green shoots

and wanted to be planted.

 

When it rained my friend

came and looked at them. They were coal painted

and their green roots were neon bulbs.

He said I should give them some ground,

a little bit of light,

 

and time. In time, he said

their luminous tentacles would spread

and I would have a maze of potato

under my little garden,

under the apple tree

and the rosemary bush

and the daffodils,

 

it would be a green yellow flood, he said

giving the worms

and the moles

their eyes, a rest, if they have eyes,

he wasn’t sure

 

but I liked the idea,

I could walk my

small wild

and know the ground could see.