In the summer, the retention hole
behind our house grows
too quickly
for the lawn man to play
catch-up with.

Flowered weeds
poke through the soggy grass,
their appearance polluting the sight
of perfection and contrasting
with the manicured lawns
when the neighbor’s gaze out
their windows.

A nuisance, but the green
fills the otherwise
empty basin, drying in the sun.

The little girl next door
occupies herself by
selecting the tallest and
most colorful for a bouquet
that she brings home
to her mother.

Her mother pretends to be
delighted, but later that night the
weeds are thrown
over the back fence,
a wilted clump that would
poison the woman’s lawn.

Eventually the weeds
in the retention hole send off
little pockets of seeds that will
float into my lawn when the
spring winds come,
and settle between the patches

of half-dead sod
that the sun has previously
murdered,
holding the soil,
preventing it from sliding
with the rainwater
down to the river.

Baby weeds sprout and become
big weeds,
reaching out their arms
and suffocating potential growth.

I wait to mow the lawn
until the weeds have
bloomed to their fullest potential,
admiring their wild origins
from my window.

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