For months, we tried to be rid of
you. You, too thick. Too prickly.
Too wandering amid the many
fingered hedges and greenery.
Much too, much too, invasive.
And It wasn’t for lack of effort
on our part. It merely took some
time. When we finally understood
we could not pry you easily away
with clippers, pliers and curses,
we took out the poison, thinking,
“This is how you’ll be eradicated.
How you will be replaced with an
emerald something that looks like
our finest shrubbery. Our vision.
We’ll do this and be done with you.”
Never realizing when we dumped
that acid on, we splashed some on
ourselves in the messy process,
spreading it from palm to palm,
rubbing against leaves we did not
intend to kill. Even now, as we gloat
you are finally gone, we’re damned
to hourly look over our shoulders,
check daily for leaves and roots
perhaps we missed amid murder.
And sometimes, if honest, while
waking at 4 a.m. to think up our
next strategy, we wonder if we did
the right thing. Not that we miss you.
Not that we want you back or do
not laugh when we talk about you.
It’s more like we look at the price
of herbicide. The cost of what it takes
to bring resentment and that little
tickle of sadism into a full bloomed
plan. We wonder what you’ll do next.
And we wonder—was it worth it?
Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt, copyright April 24, 2024, all rights reserved
Posted in Poetry Month 2024
