Table set, fork in hand,
napkin on my lap:
sitting beside you, I
still look like someone civilized.
You’re leaning forward, hands cupping your neck,
while I watch the slow
rise and fall
of your back.
Like you, I need to be broken into.
I imagine your head burrowed between my legs, fingers hooked
inside my mouth.
But I can’t speak the way you speak.
Your blackberry hair is the dare of my body near.
Your mouth stained by the blood of beets is my mouth
meeting it.
The self-contained world of the snow pea is you inside me.
And the strange sound of artichoke, if said aloud,
would be my madness mouthed.