I’ve always been a weedflower
shooting up from sidewalk cracks,
siphoning water from the tulips,
clawing out of the heavy mulch because
the gardeners decided
I wasn’t good enough.
Time and time again—from poison, shears, or wood chips—they hissed,
go away. You don’t belong. Yet I couldn’t abandon
my life on their whim. Each time
they threw me out, I came back.
I flourished in the margins of places they thought inhabitable,
dodged roses with bright pink smiles hiding sharp green thorns.
No one watered me except the sky;
no one fed me except the sun.
Still I blossomed, my yellow mane raised high.
When the heat rose and the wind blew,
I knew exactly what to do.
Without protection, the sunflowers dropped their heads,
the orchids grew pale,
and the daffodils went silent, but I
dug in my roots and bloomed a dazzling white.
The gardeners’ nuisance
became their children’s hope:
a little girl plucked me,
eyes shining,
and blew.
The Tributary 