Nicole Akoukou Thompson

Sprouted

I jabbed the garlic bulb with a five-inch kitchen blade. The cloves had begun to sprout; slivers, like fingernails on wide-set digits. They darkened, lengthened and thickened: raised brown spots and a thicket of green stemmed, inching ceiling-ward until Mama told me to dice it for the chicken parmesan—my favorite, which I’d begged her to make for dinner.