I love the lazy river lotuses, delicious as

the alligator waiting underneath. It holds

its breath ’til my salivating tear ducts

near the edge—it erupts, rips them out
from the temple to the waterline. I love

a patient poem, a Venus flytrap. Precisely

Hephaestus’ type. Mine are more and more

the Hephaestus type. Strained at every 
syllable, every cog a fidgeter. Evicted

mama’s boys who stew their dinner

thicker than I ever did. Limping, heavy-

handed, river running fevers—clumps 
in ragged roots from all the transplantations.

Hermit crab pot plants overgrowing every

urn. Some brocaded critic’s gonna eat

them alive. That’s all a mother wants. Four 
granddaughters and counting, mouth

breathers like their fathers. If they ever

pull a flooding, they’ll redecorate,

the fuckers—gild the riverbank green
with all their gaudy grudges. And I’ll sit

and watch from that throne

we all saw coming.