Vinegar Weed
Michael Rogner
I am listening
America. Bug snug
in your shattered glass cloverleaf
bosom. Cars and soldiers
strutting past tapping some indescribable
Dave Brubeck time sig. Wind-whipped
vinegar weed thrives on the future’s wasteland shoulders.
Amber dust pasted across the face
of pungent purple blossoms.
I am haunted by the smoke black
face shields hiding the rage
which has supplanted shame. These
are not my neighbors. My neighbors
do not tape over name tags.
My neighbors do not swing metal bars
with sexual lust. We all graze
on the last forage left after another brutal
summer. We all look to the sky
and know exactly where the stars
went. Once birds passed
in flocks that ruined daylight.
Golden oaken hills
shook. Our museums now house
their skulls. Our museums
catalog seeds from the plants
we hope will save us.
I am listening America.
I am in the desiccated valley
and we are all waiting for rain.
Michael Rogner is a restoration ecologist, self-taught poet, and husband battling stage IV cancer. His work appears or is forthcoming in Willow Springs, Minnesota Review, Crab Creek Review, Barrow Street, Moon City Review, and elsewhere.