Okra by Michelle McEwen

Baby Sis all of a sudden, wants to grow things– mainly okra ’cause that’s what her man likes. Must be the bump growing in her belly that makes my baby sister think she has a green thumb. She musta forgot that none of the women in our family are green thumbed. Babies, hair, and nails– the only things we’re good at growin’. Baby sis wants to change that. She says she is gonna grow and fry okra until Delroy, her man, grows sick of it. But Delroy ain’t thinkin’ ’bout okra; he got another woman ‘cross town and she, too, got a bump just startin’. Baby Sis act like she don’t know about this, but she knows; she tries not to think of it by talking ’bout okra all the time and how much of it she gon grow: “I’m gonna fill the back yard with it,” she says every morning from the back porch. She talks about how Delroy gonna smile when he sees that yard and move right in. But Delroy ain’t gonna leave that other woman behind for some okra– especially since that woman got a behind bigger than a back yard full of okra and an up-front to match.

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