The shrieks of children
tumbling in the roaring body of the ocean
is glee.
But fill me with dread—glee? the ocean? children?
And the hysterical
wisteria. That frantic and purple
emissary of the encroaching jungle.
I think the jungle will win, wind—in the end—its tensile vines
around the throats and raised swords of sun scorched monuments,
collapse the flag poles and balustrades, whatever stakes
are planted there, will charge
the volition of its green abundance, wild against the wild
volition of the frothing ocean. Marry it. What children
will march in that conjugal procession with crowns of kelp
and frantic purple flowers?
Copyright © 2020 by Genya Turovskaya. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 21, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.