I stare the yarrow down—
enviously, I watch it turn the awful dirt to oxygen.
I have seen this flower grow alongside Highway 64
beneath the guard-rails, out the gravel-stones.
at home in the smog and the lead pollution.
damn that weed—
its easter-hued petals and hardy genetics;
its tolerance for the intolerable.
the garden store displays it in a section on the patio,
the “clay soil” row, with the coneflowers and rudbeckias
that happily sit in their sticky-wet soil,
their grainy silt, their muddy flower-beds.
it hurts my eyes—
their unbearable gratitude.
their Spring showing, their bold blossoms.
red yarrow, in the hostile clay, thrives.
can’t I?
Jake Salazar is a writer based in the Midwest, where he studies poetry at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. He is a member of the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas. Jake currently lives in St. Louis with his two cats, both incisive critics.