‘Flies and Lowes by Keith David Parsons

The summer lilac has been called

a noxious weed a hundred years;

and this one in the garden section, 

may have flown much further 

than the butterflies, for which 

the plant is also named.

The carbon used to cultivate

this cultivar, the plastic for

its current cup, and water 

wasted on cement before 

my feet, weigh heavy on 

the nascent beauty of my lawn.

But ignorant of all this fret

that brought the present 

pistils to this place, a

Delaware-orange skipper

loves it yet, in front of me

she lands and feeds her face.

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Keith David Parsons (he/his) is a native of West Virginia, USA, living in Washington, DC, and less conflicted about it than you might think. He believes a poem without a message is like a big hole without spikes at the bottom—why would you dig it? He is an organizing member of the DC Poetry Collective and is featured in iNK BLOTS Vol. 1 and iNK BLOTS Vol. 2.