photo credit: Sarah Greenfield 

Flavored Water

Almost every pot starts this way

Olive oil

Sweet and hot peppers

Purple onions

Garlic and little bits of ginger root

Another stone soup is under way

Stewing on low heat in oil

And just enough water to steam

(Cause you know they don’t mix well)

Until vegetables with chicken legs and thighs 

Hardly sizzle together

Enough to smell like themselves

Then set a-simmer with enough

Water to almost cover and let bubble / not boil

Ever so gently so every flavor blends

Season to taste on top

In roux that already taste

Like some jazz bar gumbo

Down South

When the roux is right

Add hot Italian sausages

More garlic with weeping onions

Let it barely percolate

Before cutting and dropping in

Yellow potatoes and broken leaves

Of collard greens 

If it wasn’t so chunky

You could drink it

Like some exotic dark liquor

Or blood red Malbec wine