There is no need for words to explain or introduce this. The poem does its job and says it all -- and says it all well, at that.
Artichoke
Richard Foerster
For all the bother, it’s the peeling away
we savored, the slow striptease
toward a tender heart —
how each petal dipped in the buttery sauce
was raked across our lower
teeth, its residue
less redolent of desire than sweet restraint,
a mere foretaste of passion,
but the scaly plates
piled up like potsherds in a kitchen midden,
a history in what’s now
useless, discarded—
so we strained after less and less as the barbs
perhaps drew a little blood
and we cut our way
into the core to rid us of the fiber
that would stifle every ut-
terance between us.
In our quest for that morsel,
how we risked silence,
risked even
love.
