Next door they have planted thistles
I say thistles
but they’re more like globe artichokes
but taller — much taller
eight, perhaps ten feet tall
a bit like knapweed really
with their tufts of purple flowers
when I think of triffids
plants like these come to mind
they could quite easily
detach themselves from the soil
and walk in a menacing way
towards a vegetal Armageddon.
Their seed-heads are like medieval maces -
brutal — barbaric
halfway up one of the stalks
on a broad half-eaten leaf
a snail is munching peacefully
does he not know
the danger that he’s in ?
probably not
he clings in his coiled way to what he knows
and what he knows suffices and sustains.
