Ode to the Golden Girls Before Sunday Service

I watch the day break

open its mouth with a mass

choir hidden behind its fangs

a taste to be young forever

where the moon flowers

the pastoral orchard —

I harvest a bowl of butta beans

a handful of plums

bunches of collard greens

Aint Shirley & Joyce rinse

the soil from the leaves

grandma boils the ham hocks

til a tender juicy hymn

mama bakes a cast skillet cornbread

they gossip & cackle each year

they woman to woman

of a simpler time each year

where the horizon blooms

a song at the edge

Rodrick Minor is a poet from Mississippi. He is a four time member of the Baton Rouge National Poetry Slam Team, a member of Philadelphia National Poetry Slam Team, Watering Hole Fellow, Winter Tangerine Workshop Alumnus, and Hurston/Wright Fellow. Currently residing in Philadelphia, his writing centers around the study of Afro-gastronomy and how it interacts with identity, religion, mortality and culture overall.