What Grows

The crack's been there three months.

I've tried to pull the weed—

it won't come, it hunts

for water in concrete, indeed

it thrives where nothing should.

Pale green, stubborn, alive,

pushing through the gray

in a way that won't survive

winter, but today

it doesn't care.

I stop on my walks to stare.

The way it insists on growing

in the worst place to live there.

How does that feel, showing

up in a place that doesn't want you?

The weed doesn't answer back.

It just keeps on its track,

unwanted, persistent, crack

after crack. I watch the hack

of my own life in that green stem.