Cabbage Soup in a Time of Empire

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Spatulas with cabbage paste were slid over drying gashes
On the soldiers' arms. At supper, the ranks were rank in line
At the cabbage pot. In the hospital tent by the white quarry,
Cabbage stew was spooned into mouths of downed slaves.

In Siberia and Sicily, wild garlic grew its onionous antibiotics
Beneath hot sun, igniting its axils pungent with subconscious
Territory. Soldiers leagues from Rome on stone afternoon roads,
And laboring in the heat, might eat cloves of garlic to stay fit,

Eat the hot ground, the neighboring underground locked inside it,
Carried by blood and breath. It is written old aristocrats didn't
Risk it, just those in small houses or lop-hoeing summer fields.
Ancient physicians wore crowns of laurel that protected them

From thunderstorms. The Delphic Oracle chewed bay leaves and sat
In clouds of smoldering bay, the laurel brailing into a future vision.
The duke's cook added sage liberally to fat-marbled meat, and     rubbed
Into powder, old sage was a velvet, a smudge incense, a sprinkling

Over chicken wings. Pungent fenugreek also soothed and protected:
A servant might make a poultice to unclog her mother's lungs or a     tonic
To deepen desire. It helped back then because of a goddess
It is said, as the cabbage stews and is scooped into carved bowls.

So we eat the cabbage, knowing what is at stake, these cells
sharpening vacant places where warriors still pray for their lost
viciousness and servants will fly off into the future, landing
here in this room in Portland as if nothing happened.