Florida Salad

Almond sweet, dirty lettuce flowers,

chunky, gritty, buzz with crunchy protein bugs

squishy, and topped with the grim chew

of palm leaves, like old grass or worse, artichoke

leaves sucked at and chucked, no lemon,

just the buds the hummingbirds wrap themselves

in pollen, sweet that powders you, yellow

like buttercup fragile and breaking on tongue

and the hairy squiggle shiver when a fern

lends its oversized buttons on tongue, like sunflower

seeds sucked too long, so long your taste buds pop

out and whine against your next bite

the bite of chives, sharp rendered deep to nose.