Garlic Braiding Time

It's garlic braiding time.
They lay on their newspaper bed,
Soil encrusted roots now dry,
Translucent skin flaking,
Stalks brown and bending.

I choose them in nines.
Magic number perhaps.
Or maybe I just like it,
The uniformity.

First dirty layers slough off in my hands.
Collect the bulbs.
Cut the roots off.
Secateur slice the cooking string,
That is fresh, clean and white as the new year.

I plait together the first three bulbs.
Left, right, left, right,
Left.
Add the fourth.
Right.
And so it goes till the braid curls.
A long plait to finish.
Not always knowing when to stop.
A surgeon's knot
Another turn of the strings.
Another.
A reef knot secures it.
Figure of eight to make its hanging loop.

Finishing,
I look across at those that remain unbraided.
And contemplate what to do with those too small to make the final cut.