Weeding - March 22, 2023

weeds are somebody’s kids

babies a mother left

in sidewalk cracks

or lost in the wind

to wake up in fields and flowerbeds

or slipped her grip in rain

and washed away out of sight

while here I am

chopping them off at the knees

filling a bucket with

limp and dying bodies

without any ear

for their fatal screams

nor the terrible thought

that I’m killing orphans

but that today

murder is such a chore