Of course the knotweed shoots up like a spear
of asparagus—the leaves close-fisted in prayer.
I wish the knotweed were attractive to deer.
As one more knotweed shoots up like a spear
another pops up here and there and here.
Forty more knotweed stalks fill a field where
just before, no knotweeds shot up like spears
their leaves, like me, close-fisted in prayer.
—
Carla Schwartz’s poems appear in The Practicing Poet and her collections Signs of Marriage, Mother, One More Thing, and Intimacy with the Wind. Learn more: carlapoet.com, or all social media @cb99videos. Recent/upcoming curations: Great Weather for MEDIA, Contemporary Haibun Online, Modern Haiku, Paterson Literary Review, North Dakota Quarterly, One Art, Rattle Magazine, Sheila-Na-Gig, Spank the Carp, The MacGuffin, and Leon Literary Review. Carla Schwartz received the NEPC Cummings Prize.
