Like fennel, tall and yellow-flowered,
your mericarps heart-shaped, your worth measured
in silver, resin stored in emperors’ locked vaults;
your likeness is carved into coin faces, your body
still sought in lost pages, the dry hillsides
where poets’ songs praised you. Little cure-all,
equal parts contraceptive and desire stored
in your stems and seed pods, symbol of love
and of wanting, stand-in for powers that rule
stronger than kings for as long as man stands
on parched grasses and claims them—
where is your wisdom of underground streams,
of heart’s blood and the ground disappearing?

—Chelsea Woodard

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