The grass sheared and shorn to razorblades
I mowed down and dug deep to grasp
every weed and wrench each from life-giving soil.
It was not enough. There was no blood.
I tossed the roots over the fence like detritus.
Such guile to endure with steadfast commitment
and suck up the sun without permission.
Not mine, not his mother’s. Bitter truth watered my lips.

A child is a young shoot coming up who holds
the promise of the blossom from the bud,
a dream cupped in our hands like a lotus prayer.
But as the petals unfolded, one by one
face down and dropped like a pack full of jokers
he reached for needles on impervious ground
finding no nutrients to feed him . . .
and now, with a future buried in dirt.

A weed, like a wildflower, is anything growing
where you don’t want it to grow.