Loosestrife

You have become your name, loosestrife, 

carried on sheep, spurting up out of ballast, 

a cure brought across the deep

to treat wounds, soothe trouble.

There have been others like you, the rhododendron, 

the cattails that you in your turn overrun.

Voices praise your magenta spread, your ability

  to propagate by seed, by stem, by root 

and how you adjust to light, to soil, spreading 

your glory across the earth even as you kill  

by boat, by air, by land all before you: the hardy iris,

the rare orchids, the spawning ground of fish.

You’ll overtake the earth and destroy even yourself.

Ah, our loosestrife, purple plague, beautiful us.

delanty_Loosestrife1.jpg

Greg Delanty’s latest collection of poems is No More Time. Read more.


Greg Delanty’s “Loosestrife” was previously published in No More Time (LSU Press, 2020)

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