No pitying/“Ah” for this one
— Alan Shapiro
No, nor a fierce hurrah
for what it does without choice,
for following the light
for the same reason the light follows it.
Just a thing rough to the touch, a face
like a thousand ticks turning their backs,
suckling at something you can’ t see,
and a body like a tag off the earth
so that my child hands couldn’ t tear it out
from the overgrown lot next door.
My palms raw with the shock
of quills and spines. Its hold like spite, and ugly
except when seen from a distance —
a whole field of them by the highway,
an 80-mile-per-hour view
like a camera’ s flash.
All of them like halos
without saints to weigh them down.