Agave

you need to be with me in this house
your heart at least is not removed
until the twelfth year when the jimador
strips you of your leaves
and you lie with the others
waiting to be bled of your sap

(while it was that other Agave who was
punished into being

a reveller), drinking and
dancing a great time until

you rip apart
the wrong wild beast -
all the things that

reoccur in the morning,
especially those that can’t be

undone. But agave - you would be
out of your element here too

you prefer high altitude and sandy soil
and, in your tufted rows,
have company in life

as in death, when you become
one of many chiselled faces
on a factory floor
a crow watching over

your blanched cheeks,
honey-scented steam.

~

words: Rose Hunter, Mexico (YB poetry journal / blog)
image: 'Yaiza' - Dorothee Lang, Germany (blueprint21)

~

author's note: about the poem and discomfort zones