Botanicals

loving these rank weeds
better than any hothouse flower,
those green tendrils under glass
fertilized with gold coins

and kisses. No--give me
the dandelion leaves, curly-edged,
so good to eat, the Queen Anne's
lace, the accidental Orange William

bursting through rock regardless of
any human action or inaction,
the broad leaves worked to lace
by the bug's jaws sawing, satiated--

they are never satiated--always
hungry, hungry, lapping up the
dew. Accidental colors, the flag
to fly, royal purple, butter yellow

the ivory-pale honeysuckle trumpets out
sweet scent in a cloud, a fug
to walk through, no, no hothouse
flowers these--and all the better for it