Native Species
       

In the spring the men come out again to clear the land,
yellow Cat dozers popping up on distant hillsides

like morels to be collected after the first warm days
of May. In fields studded with the rhinestone glitter

of purple knapweed, machines nose aside whatever lingers
too long in the path: stones laid down by a glacier's

swollen body, a rain-washed pair of child's underwear,
white-spangled fawn fresh from the belly of before-this-world.

Untouched? No such thing. Razed, plowed under, laid
to rest only to have soil peel back from the jaw bone.

What hasn't been populated by trespassers, remade from
the inside out? No wonder my body is finally doing the dirty

work it's always wanted to, spiraling deep within itself to make
from this wildness something that doesn't care if it belongs.

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Copyright © 2019 Keetje Kuipers All rights reserved
from All Its Charms
BOA Editions
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission