gherkin

Because you had the word placed

In the forehead of your

Facebook profile that morning

and because I had never

seen that word before

 I found a picture on-line

A nest of forgotten phalluses

Photosynthesized in an

Orphaned bouquet of spring

 

Wondering what the film of

This dilled botany feels like

as it enters your mouth

dripping between the

hyphen of your lips

 

And how after we spoke

 

I wanted to can the rich

Stream of your sentences

in a mason jar of acidic brine

preserving the Chlorophyll

of new beginnings

the fermented heart

salted and stowed in vinegar

 

so that you might devour it slowly

 

one esculent chomp at a time.

--for Carolina de Luca