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Wilt
Plant the public’s view
in a garden
where color peeks through the foliage,
where men stop and smell the roses,
the hemlocks,
the long locks.
Where I sit
buried by the roots of my scalp,
the veins to my heart.
I shear the hair at the nape,
and now I’m soiled.
‘Why won’t you let it grow?
Tend to it like the rest?
Satisfy my eye?’
I am not
your sweet pea,
your yellow rose,
your summer daisy.
I am
the sagebrush in the sea,
the tangled vine.
I won’t arrange,
won’t succumb,
won’t wilt.