Vegetability

by Hathaway Barry

Bending down, my nose in amongst the platter-sized, bristly squash leaves (late summer, dewy morning) I reach into her dark hub and find there a yellow or pale green scalloped fruit—so fresh born its blossom is still attached and up flies the smell— how shall I call it?— the smell of vegetability. Moist, dark soil still wet and glistening, cool from last night's sprinkling, rich with food and tiny white roots. In the night the earth has heaved her hips again and here I am barefoot, back in the kitchen with my basket full of morning jewels and this smell all over my hands— a midwife just home from a birth.