Agave

Not all plants are vegetarian.
There’s this one that sits across the garden
separate from all of the other bushes,
with sharp teeth and long octopus-like tentacles,
that always feels like it’s going to grab me when I walk past.
Maybe this is why I am drawn to stop
and touch its smooth, thick shark-like skin.
It’s my odd way of feeling close to danger,
though only imagined,
like the first time I touched the back of a snake.
I knew it wouldn’t hurt me,
but there was this fear,
this intrinsic knowledge of the wildness,
the unpredictability of the reptilian brain.
In fact I wonder if this giant possible people-eating plant
is really a reptile trans-species,
having the body of a photosynthesizer,
but having the mind and memory of a Tyranosaurus Rex.
At this the green teeth smile slyly at me.
And as I run a finger across their razor’s edge
I think about the last time I got drunk on Tequilla
and how I threw all of my clothes out the window of a cab
and bought beer in a 7/11 naked.
I know it may sound funny, but for a moment
I like the idea of living in a world where plants kill people
as much as we kill them,
where all of us- plants, animals and humans-are fair game.
There is an awakeness that comes
from living so close to death
that we have forgotten-
a respect that comes from not knowing
the name or nature of a thing
until we have had our own conversation with it-
a hope that comes when we bow to the beings of this Earth
rather than some God who is up in the sky-
a humbleness that comes
when we give thanks for all that we eat,
knowing one day we, too, will be eaten.