The year when I sold the property I thought
I’d let the wisteria grow wild.
I would let her take her revenge
after so many years.
I recalled when she was cut. A stump
a maimed nothing
after having shaded so abundantly
the veranda outside the main bedroom
having made luscious love
to pinkish brick walls
fingering them all the way up
—green caress, purple sighs—
in the evenings, at dawn, glass in hand
spilled wine and dew drops
loose nightgowns, murmurs, laughter and shush
deep breaths, candlelight, china
half cigar and a lost bobby pin
pillow fallen on terracotta, sweet dreams.
Lavish, selfless, naked love
she was cut to a stump.
Her roots, the architect said, hug foundations
too tight, too enthusiastically
her affection unbridled.
She should take her revenge, I thought
centuries later and hemispheres away
when I put the property on sale.
Wasn’t this another plant? Not sure.
She bore the same name
as the one I had previously known
and she looked the same.
She must be at least a kin
and so I let her spill, Amazonian.
Leafy branches poured down
to kiss the concrete—dark green pillars.
Tendrils launched themselves into the void
like ropes reaching for distant windows
across a wide driveway.
Tendrils went amok, dared the impossible
groping at every square inch
of un-inhabited atmosphere
curling free-style like figure skaters
inebriated with grace
pirouetting like acrobats on a quest
for absolute infinity.
I let the wisteria grow tangled
and tangling, baroque
arabesque, romantic and decadent.
Primitive and naïf. Redundant. Ridiculous.
Branches lashing at me
as I timidly reached my car
then carefully backed up
under a drone of dominant greenery
gently yet insistently clawing
at metal or skin with nails eager
to leave a sappy indelible mark
bite of boundless nature, let me.
Let me. Live.