Density & The artichoke
by Sara Fitzpatrick
[ poetry - december 07 ]
Density
There's gravity
and there's also the heat,
heavy as breath,
holding us to that threat of earth.
And the air has its own sound,
a hum like something
electrical trying to work.
But under that,
the buzz of mosquito planes -
I should be thankful
but I can only think
how someone's out there
making decisions for me
and how those diseases
roll off the tongue
like planets, or genitalia, or gods:
typhus, malaria, or all fevers
that perhaps were mine to die by
and that destiny's been rescinded.
The artichoke
A difficult vegetable to peel, this longing
so that you ask is it worth it?
But it's ambrosia in the broth
if only for the cut fingers
and overturned truck of immigrant workers
that delays one, from, say,
a glass of wine with friends.
Is it worth it,
all the scraped knees
on slopes to find it,
to strip it of its tenacity
and make of it a bland slurry
so starchy, from once, thorns?
