I rip them up by the roots, they are the only plants I hate though to be honest it's mostly because I need an excuse to put my phone away. I am weary of the virus, the clean hands they tell us to maintain I want black half-moons beneath my nails, I want my arms and legs to ache from exertion, not from fever from improvements I can measure, each square foot without burr clover a victory I can stand inside and celebrate. Everything seems okay outside, bees hover in the lemon tree, lovesick wrens weave nests in the eaves, earthworms slick the clot of soil I've torn free. Only the burr clover weeps. I try to stop my ears, to justify the genocide: it's my yard and you'll take over, I tell them. Your burrs lodge in my cat's tail. You choke the flowers, you're ugly you have no medicine to offer me. But I see the plant's tenacity, the star-sprawl of its open arms, ingenious coils, corona of hooks on each burr, tender leaves of three. Angel of death pass over, the clover pleads. We drink rain and eat sun same as anything, anyone. What can you know of medicine? Life is more than seed. E. D. Watson
