Plump as plums
they hang in a green shade.
Pick one. Peel back the husk and find
a shell there, pocked and wrinkled
like some distant world.
You’ll need a knife. Just press
your blade against the lateral line
then prise the halves apart
and there, in a nutshell
is a brain.
Packed tight into an inch wide skull
two waxy hemispheres
each ridged and swollen
into lobes and clefts
and each the image of the other.
Remove the nut and place it on your tongue.
Dark and resinous, the taste
stirs shadows in your own brain shell
of something long forgotten –
garnered sunlight
the slow insistent pulse of growth.
A Terrible Fear of Cheese 