The Artichoke

The Artichoke She bore only the heart, Worked at the stem with her Fingers, pulling it to her, And into her, like a cord. She would sustain him, Would cover his heart. The hairy needles And the bigger leaves, These she licked into shape, Tipping each with its point. He is the mud-flower, The thorny hugger. The Asparagus She sent packs of great beasts to pass Over him, trailing belly-fur and dust, Bending their nostrils to his frail spear. This was to toughen him. For what? Stupidly, like a squirrel, standing up, Looking here and there, looking to all sides, He is cut down and taken away. She can smell him steaming, his crowns Already tender, his spine giving in. Now he is threatening to wither terribly, And slip from the water altogether, And billow through the kitchen like prayer. The Cauliflower Her words clot in his head. He presses himself to remember And feels the skin peel back, The skull bleach, crack, fall away. All that's left of him is the brain, Its tissue knotting up to shade him, The pain of its light pulsing How to move, how to move. Herbs Before fog leaves the scrub-oak Or the grasses of the downland, Take dragonwort under the black alder, Take cockspur grass and henbane, The belladonna, the deadly nightshade. Free them as you would a spider's web, Singing over them: Out, little wen, Out, little wen. Sing this into the mouth of the woman. Corn I am the corn quail. What I do is quick. You will know only The muffled clucking, The scurry, the first Shiver of feathers And I will be up, I will be in your Head with no way out, Wings beating at the Air behind your eyes. Celery The hope with water is that it will conceal nothing, that a clearness will follow upon it like the clearness after much rain, or the clearness where the air reaches to the river and touches it, where the rain falls from the trees into the river. Bell Pepper To find enough rooms for the gathering The walls go on alone not waiting For corners but thinking of sleeves And how the wind fills them and the snow Fills them and how cold it is without Fires when there are not enough rooms. Potatoes It had been growing in her like vegetables. She was going into the ground where it could Do better, where she could have potatoes. They would be small and easily mistaken For stones. It would fall to her to Sort them out, persuade them to stay Close to her, comforting her, letting her Wear them on her body, in her hair, Helping her hold always very still.