Italian thistle has tithed most
to my cuttings these last days.
In later Junes, rough touch
recalled, I’ll spoor less bare.
I ask Charles Darwin: come
eye the goats with me, and how
they eat spined things.
Charles Darwin picks up a rock. He tells me the present is the key to the past.
I want Charles Darwin to know I know something. I want Charles Darwin to
remember me. I speak to him of beetles that bore earth. I tell Charles Darwin
that we have rollers here. I say to him: Charlie, I’ve watched them roll dung
face down/ass up. Do not question me for using 2 Live Crew as a way to
Charles Darwin’s heart. I have learned, in life: there is no slicker way to charm
whitefolk than to let them into blackness. Charles Darwin finishes the lyric.
Charles Darwin and I squat into the royalled ripgut, and count morning
spiderwebs.
