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.
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)