KUDZU — DECEMBER CUCCARO
/We learn to eat the kudzu after it traps us. We crack windows to let vines crawl in, to sustain ourselves and sometimes see sunlight behind the smothering veil. We learn to fry leaves into chips, steep roots into tea, boil flowers into jelly. In the dark and silence we sit on our couch and snap the tender ends off the tendrils snaking over our laps; we eat those raw. My wife leans into my shoulder and whispers that she can’t remember who she was before. I stroke her cheek, soft as the fuzz on a seed pod.
December Cuccaro is a South Floridian living in the high desert of Reno with her spouse, cat, and two goblinesque chihuahuas. In 2021, she received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Nevada, Reno, and attended the Clarion West Writers Workshop.
