And My Hoja Santa Cannot Eradicate this Bout


of lament:
Silly, so silly to think it possible for
photosynthesis and autotrophy to salve that
shit, though she promised me
genuinely to accomplish this;

In her robust leaves, at three a.m.,
I find something, nonetheless.

Not tenderness. Not sulking.
In her stalks that pose and pirouette--
The limbs of tall birds like herons
like amber cranes lit by stale street bulbs,
Though so far from foam and coast and
storms churning follies
In the rambunctious Gulf, and
nonsense and tragedies and
thousands of seedlings riding salty troughs,
And grains of castles
like neurons and nonchalance
slipping through toes—

Fondle carbon. Manipulate nitrogen.

Hoja santa, grow for me.
Give me momentum. Give me millimeters
And moths and velocity. Give me that much.