Milkweed

Milkweed, named for a god by a Linnaeus Milkweed of meadows, arroyosMilkweed of Texas, California, Indiana Milkweed terrains the open woods,roadsides Milkweed of poetry, pleurisy Milkweed flowers beside my house,landscapes how I belongMilkweed for the latex, milky globes Milkweed erases potassium, calciumMilkweed erupts with silk, floss It discolors with aphids Milkweed luresbutterflies It saves them but sometimes makes them sleep too soon,too open, brittle in the airMilkweed in swamps, crags, sandy hills Milkweed burns orangeIt carries lances It poisons darts, sutures of the head Milkweed sets the skywith clouds, it sets the cracked ground with rain Milkweed becomes rope,it braids rope Milkweed tethers people, places Ashes, correspondencesMilkweed, dreamy nights, chewing gum, human industry, my legacyMilkweed burns white, burns green It circles the deep, the dark reservoirMilkweed mitigates infestation Milkweed, a migratory way stationIt sometimes traps pollinators with ornate tines, it traps them to deathMilkweed freezes, brown shock, seed pods agape Milkweed shaped with awe,my awe angled just soMilkweed, a song Milkweed stirs the imagination, filaments languageMilkweed abuts the dead, the living, entre-space Milkweed festers steroidsat the broken spots It grows against wind, against weeds Milkweed and I,we are wet with the same waterMilkweed of antelope horns, horse tails Milkweed, pine straw, perennial nitrogenMilkweed burns scarlet Milkweed that eclipses its origin that holds time in viewWhose powder sometimes lets me from myselfSo I might heal what happened