How it works, it seems,
is that there is this sharp-shelled
and bitter seed that digs its root
into the fine soft soil, strangles the edges
of our very normal want to eat
and not be torn to pieces, and sets its pistils
upward to the heat of a rage
so it can grow its barbs.
They apparently scatter all
on their own, shaken off the muddy
shoes of the big town pastor
and finding a spot in your lawn
so it can pick at the ankles of neighbors
and try to polish its petals foil-colored,
and if you have enough,
like maybe a few hundred in their potted seats
in a stadium somewhere willing to pick at themselves,
you can turn the sand beneath them into enough one-way
glass
to force the sun in every direction
into the eyes of mothers
whose names you do not know
and hope they crumble under their sweat,
so there’s a whole racket now, of sowing them
everywhere till folks call it a common sight,
till it busts through the concrete outside your boy’s high school,
till it catches the blood from my brother’s torn cheek and shimmers,
till its faintest trichomes try to pull the strings from my
thigh
so it can get at my head better.
I hear the easy way’s to check your gardens
often to see the spites sprout from the dirt,
a stern pluck delivered early before the sun warms it.
But barring that, once it’s run your whole yard,
taken your loveliest flowers in its ideology,
ask yourself: how do you want your lawn to be seen?