I don’t remember if the accompanying gold had a specific name but that green darkened many a kitchen cabinet and appliance in its day…

Long ago, in a childhood
far away in upstate New York
kitchens used to be
avocado,
A color foreign,
dark olive green, not
quite army or khaki
sometimes paired with gold.
But avocado was something
unknown, a mysterious myth
of something which
might be real. Somewhere else.
As a fashion decorating goal
it ceded to red or blue or white
and now, I think, concrete
but what that name,
that dark color meant here,
so close to New England
was not revealed for many years
when a bowl of green appeared
next to chips and that
new thing, salsa
as wonderfully exotic as
the dance of the same name.
Now, feeling time-traveled
like readers arriving
finally at the red planet
we embrace the avocado,
not just for chips
it’s snuck into sandwiches
and now, for breakfast
welcome on our toast.