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 Vacant Lot With Pokeweed by Amy Clampitt 
						Tufts, follicles, grubstakebiennial rosettes, a low-
 life beach-blond scruff of
 couch grass: notwithstanding
 the interglinting dregs
 
 of wholesale upheaval and
 dismemberment, weeds do not
 hesitate, the wheeling
 rise of the ailanthus halts
 at nothing—and look! here's
 
 a pokeweed, sprung up from seed
 dropped by some vagrant, that's
 seized a foothold: a magenta-
 girdered bower, gazebo twirls
 of blossom rounding into
 
 raw-buttoned, garnet-rodded
 fruit one more wayfarer
 perhaps may salvage from
 the season's frittering,
 the annual wreckage.
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