Wonder is a gateway

to exploring the magic in the mundane.

I am not waiting for the map.

I am the map.

Marked,
made legible by how I love and how I leave and how I show up in rooms that never saw me coming.

Wisdom is something I pieced together with memory and dirty hands.

Something I made.

Something handed to me from those before me who knew, and kept it in their bones.

I stir a living wisdom.

Circle slow.

The first to take their time,

unlike my mother,

unlike her mothers,

who circled fast,

stirred through ache,

never cried into the pot

when they should have.

I do not measure sorrow

and swallowed words,

nor season,

nor pepper.

I do not rush.

There is a hum unfolding

in the belly of the bowl,

and it rests.

The potlikker simmers.

The grief breathes,

yawns green, and salt,

and stretches into my mouth.

Everything but bitterness.

Tastes just fine,

what I’m becoming—

a mouthful.

A mouthful.

Wisdom is what I create
when I cannot afford to be confused.