Artichokes

On long stalks they make a masculine bouquet,

head-heavy bunch nodding over my shoulder,

disinterested planets, older versions of quiet

camp fires where men circled the round coals,

where thorny silence was a way to speak.

Once at home, they are stone mothers

covered in green scale of lichen, the weight

carried in the womb, firm seasonal bud,

private and pollenless, that blessing on all

lips come round to confirm the feeling we reach

when we hold the green world in one fist,

one perfect globe unstemmed. Each thick

fleshed rose, each tight petalled breast,

a thing no one can know without the trick

of slow steaming, of softening the spikes.

So we meet in hunger, ripe to taste

the other in this meal as we shred

the leaves free, work toward the delicate

secretive hair, peel it apart,

devour the old cliche, the tender heart.