Weeding Goosefoot*

2015 Merit Award
By Angela Belcaster

Weeding Goosefoot

I am weeding in my sleep.
Goosefoot, this time.
I have to look it up when I wake:
chenopodium.

It really does resemble
the sweet leathered foot of a goose —
how many times I’ve knelt
brown-kneed, supplicant-positioned,
then ripped them out of the ground?

Tricky, this weeding business. They bite back some,
the ones who seem to know
the stutters in my immunology,
my hundred and seven Achilles’s heels.

Truth: we are appalled by each other’s strangeness.

Me, walking about,
searching for the next unmatched thing to rip out,
they, wanting nothing more
than dirt, sun, and mercy.

. . . . .
*Copyright 2015 by Angela Belcaster. Broadside illustrated by Mat Hudson.