ADRIENNE KING

How to Love Your Weeds
 
I type out our new mantra
this is fine!—
hit send
and watch the letters float up, white and green.
your reply, an overdue echo:
This. Is. Fine.
 
again this year the weeds—
creeping bellflower, lesser burdock,
dandelion, Canadian thistle—
take every spare bit of soil.
spear-shaped leaves sprout faster than I can pull them out.
 
but here’s the thing, you write,
waiting for the thing, possibilities spread.
 
my sister gives me a book called “How To Love Your Weeds”
I laugh and promise to try.
 
I leave my wallet at a man’s apartment
and the lost wallet blossoms into a lunch date,
my hand clinging to my phone the whole time
under the table, waiting for your answer:
this, this is the thing.
 
a dandelion goes to seed, and I mouth a prayer for stillness,
most beautiful when breath of wind from bursting,
growing so deep so quick.
 
all these seeds,
all these weeds to love:
this is fine.