Thistles at the Fork
What will be there in the end,
I imagine
the hardiest of plants–
invasive
and ruthless, undesirable to our eye–
escaping the human take and unending want.
Perhaps the thistle, with purple hair on top
between fuchsia and amethyst for a crown
and the aggressive body of she: Prickled edges;
Shoots of thorn to ward and warn;
and roots deep and wide: expanding
twenty feet each year untidied–yes, perhaps,
it is she. Enduring until this fork of path,
her aching body surrounded by ash,
still giving seed to the wind, trying.
She, a bit of violet for the orange horizon,
an angry plant with spite holding,
roots gripping, as the last living thing: a weed.
If I could learn to love the thistle, it would
cure my condition of timely loneliness.
If I accept her beauty, then, there, at the end,
is something worthy and unlost.
Tara Hollander is an emerging poet whose work meditates on gender, sexuality, family, and immersive biology. Read more.