Taylor Graham
The Plant

While Dame Kiri soars her bright
articulated vowels from your CD player,

the only green in your life,
the philodendron,
thrusts against its pot –

rough clay molded by indigenous
fingers which you dickered
down your last trip,

caught on film, the best shot
(two native girls with unintelligible
smiles) enlarged on your wall

behind that potted plant
whose roots have finally cracked
the ethnic clay,

forcing you to release it
still clinging to its dirt –
such a mess of coiled roots pushing
any way a dumb plant knows.

No wonder it’s a lower life-
form. Nothing but chlorophyll and dark
wordless

thrusting toward light.

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