Nightshade Ghazal Poem by Judith Skillman

Mother can no longer eat from the family of nightshades —
peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, all verboten, nightshades

make arthritis worse, stiffness cumbersome. In Hades
her girls lost half the year, down there, with the shades.

Call her Demeter. Still, mother can no more imbibe
of sunberry than drink a potion from foxglove, nightshade

the color of indigo, ink dripping into her heart. Eradicate
her sadness, her endless griefs, still she refuses nightshades

when the waiter comes in his stiff whites to take her order.
Explaining, as if it were a story, how it started. Nightshades —

once her favorite vegetables, completely gone, the diet
works for her — all is well in the garden of Eden, nightshades

aside. Mother me or what I will become in just two decades.
My own version of mother: her stories, her family, nightshade.