1 poem
Where in the Morning (Goosefoot)
Water and start the house each morning—
germs, then radishes
How’s it going here, when it came
from here in the first place it’s been
the longest morning having
broken myself in so many ways
each piece of me with its own new measure
of time, it adds up
thinking about where things come from, how
could we chard by the pound when the beet
roots the spinach, or the amaranth fed to pig-
weed— and quinoa in the store forgets where
it comes from the farmers who grew it in southern
climes can’t afford their own crop against northern
demand, so often
time and cardinality break down in the body so
we start seeds, pinch stems, ball
roots, muscle dirty food
towards the sink bays towards the market
asking—what’s going here? We ask again
and again meaning
what stems can we muscle sprout from
this field furniture into the dirt future nearing
us in acres time and seasonally, what
words will the market harvest mash them-
selves against in the buyers’ mouths—
so expensive, delicious, fresh
catastrophe
outside, the smoke—
what they bother with
Ian U Lockaby is a poet, translator, and former farmworker. His poems and translations can be found in Sixth Finch, Denver Quarterly, Witness Magazine, Hobart, Washington Square Review, The Arkansas International, and elsewhere. His translation of Gardens, by Chilean poet Carlos Cociña, was published by Cardboard House Press in 2021. He currently teaches at Louisiana State University and lives in New Orleans.