I knew that they were poisonous, the berries.
Still, I used them to make soup. They were
the most beautiful shades of yellow, green
and orange, and they popped when you squeezed them
and spilled their sticky juice, their tiny seeds.
I’d stir them into puddle water with handfuls
of ripped green grass, small stones, broken sticks.
Then I’d stir. Stir and chant into the old silver pot,
chant words I imagined had been sung long before.
It was a soup, I knew, that could heal.
A magical soup that could nourish the world
just in the making of it.
Years later I consider what I knew then—
how belief is the most important ingredient.
How all healing begins with a bit of poison.
