Only the Strong

 

Only the Strong

 

Take weeds – no, take mosquitos,

nipping at your heels;

your ankles – how often you feel them

kissing hairs just above –

ah, it must have been love

but it’s over now

and even though you dealt her a death blow

there’s snowdrifts more coming through.

 

Once a flea thought he was not a flea

at all, and jumped, maybe

150 times his relative size

but, alas, he was not king all he surveyed.

His was a schoolboy error, made

landing, as he did, on sticky tape.

You folded him inside,

like amber, but on contraction he popped

and what a lot of blood he’s got –

yours, probably.

 

Back to weeds, this summer’s heat,

relentless, the burning sun, scalded the lawn

crispy brown until grasses being born

gave it up as a bad job. Still, patches of green

are dotted hereabouts, like bacteria

thriving in a Petri dish that time you warmed

your coughs and sneezes -

thistles, docks, dandelion clocks, riding breezes

and thriving.

 

Why? And the brambles

abseiling your fences, downward spears

tooled up with thorn, there’ll be tears

if you pluck what sour fruit is on offer –

you scowl, make busy with the Roundup or Raid,

but it seems they like the taste –

that or greet you from some other place.

 

Sneaky bastards – they’ll gouge out your eyes

given half a chance – they despise

your weakness – you can’t articulate why,

what it is that’s needling you,

nor can they put it into words,

how they keep just ticking along,

how there’s nothing here wrong,

mate, holding out hands that if bitten

become feeders, suckers, creepers – give nothing

unless you’re counting bees -

even these seem to tuck tail and flee.

 

You could argue,

the more you cultivate, the more the risk,

while sheering wool, you’re fleeced –

but take out the mower, attack at least:

Taking measurements of how strong

by how frequently you are preyed upon.