nettles & pennycress

weeds

beside the shiny white fence
the tough fleshy roots
of nettles & pennycress
grow & grow

fed by the carcasses of
trees their grip is
insistent as a foetus
clinging to her mother

beneath the silver
willow tatters, red crab-apples,
disembodied wreckage of a wing –

for the mansions have come!
monstrous garages gouge
at the earth perforating a womb
as people pave gardens

but yet & yet the wild yarrows
still reincarnate, heart-shaped
shepherd’s purses are flapping in the wind –

amongst these hardened yards i know
my baba will float around, coaxing;
watering with a tin can, pressing at the soil
with her earthy fingernails

(she taught us to plant things,
her hands were always so
covered in loam & love)

& i know she’ll pity
those rich mansion-people
& their big houses full of cars
& impoverished little children
who live in the disconnected basement
stunted by ceilings & video games

because she knows
that weeds will soon
start pushing up through
that faulty foundation

weeds
will always survive
like houses don’t –