I find my voice.
I won’t have this anymore.
You call me junky tree,
scrub tree. You plot
my death. I came

without invitation
because I didn’t
need one. This was
years before you.

This was in
the time of ferns.

Tell me it was not.
Tell me if I’m lying.
Ask your children

to show you their
tongues. Are they not
purple? Secretly, secretly,
they pick up my fruit.

As do squirrels,
as do birds,
and butterflies
sip there, too.

And now I am
not welcome.
And now I hear
many curses

as I make wine
on the sidewalk—
and you, you walk
through it without
even stopping
to drink.

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