somebody not cutting down my lantana

gives it space to breathe

its leaves flippy flopping in the

little bit

of breeze against my back forty feet of yard

I paid a woman-owned landscape company in the city once to come tidy my previous yard

Her (all male) team immediately chopped down all my bushes,

all of which were

flowering

beautiful

salvias.

She didn’t refund the day’s charge

despite commiserating that indeed they should have known

not to cut flowering items

I wonder a lot about why the lantana leaves in the sixfoot clump in the back backyard are thin and normal green

not dark green like the lantana I buy at nurseries

lantana has unique flower formation

nothing can be like it

nothing mistaken for it

but the nursery leaves are like

a cross between

oregano

and peppermint

looking edible

don’t eat it that way. I did once on accident

one more way my concussion interferes.

Cognition is valuable

especially when foraging

eight months of steroids later…

Why this lantana

has leaves half the thickness

of paper

and yields half a shade lighter than kelly green.

It looks more chewable,

like a moment in the mouth would give you clarity

about the purpose of the back flat teeth you have

like it would make a paste of goo in the mouth

like if you spit it into your hand, the goo would be thin, soft,

where the nursery’s leaves chewed up would end in jaggedness and frustrated saliva feeling impotent against the power of those cellulose walls.

I cant imagine a more southern name for a

plant

than lantana

I lived once near the home where Steel Magnolias filmed

but on the Texas side, too far from multicutural Shreveport for my taste
but close enough to find crawfish at the grocery store.

But if I had lived on the other side,

I’d have been closer to the Angola plantation prison

no matter where I live, I can’t seem to figure out

where to go that doesn’t mistreat people who don’t look like me

notwithstanding needing to report at least one company to the fedeeral trade commission

every

day

for violating my

disability rights.

a BLM friend once reflected

It’s like they can’t even see you’re
white
when you’re in that wheelchair

something to be said for being able to leave my house after sundown, though
i cant do that anymore, but i could until 2025
so at least i remember