Everybody’s Authenticity

Among weeds, among variants of native
crab grasses. One adapts to the kinds
that curl or stand up straight, the bright green
and speckled yellow. I would have to leave this poem
and enter the world to render
a better description. Plants don’t fly north
or south, their migration is passive. But they
assimilate rabidly, into hybrids. The dog
is dismissive, indiscriminate, yet a colonizer,
by way of the paw. What you must have looked like
crouched curbside, at the edge of a shopping
mall, looking for that elixir a Peruvian
woman taught you to boil
into a tea. It’s for the swollen legs, you say,
for the toes like mini chorizos, and it tastes
okay, like nothing at all. Awaiting results,
you call your sister in a town
girdled by the Pyrenees, where crinoline
can be heard rustling through the plaza. On your end,
a blender is a welcome relief: I am sick
of pounding things. It’s no way
to live. You want tradition? Here’s the mortar & pestle.
Believe me, the point’s just to pulverize.