Wisteria

“The previous 3 owners of this house 

all tried getting rid of that thing,

and it always came back.”

My neighbor,

the retired, dog-walking 

patriarch-overseer of the block,

took a long drag

on his cigarette.

“Good luck.”

He and his

emaciated guinea pig  

sauntered off,

“I told you so”

preloading in their swagger. 

The knowledge that I had to

oust not only the bush

but their smugness as well

was a splint 

to my resolve. 

Despite its rich purple blossoms,

the wisteria had to go;

it wouldn’t let go

of its malicious quests 

to reach, entangle, and pull down

2 edges of the chain link fence

and to grow pods 

that gave my daughter hives. 

I resorted to adopting

almost every piece of advice

from well-meaning backyard horticulturalists:

“cut off all the branches first”

“salt the stump”

“chop it into chunks”

“tear out all the tendril roots”

“burn it”

Waiting weeks between each method

and watching it grow back repeatedly 

worried me into desperate action,

a crater eventually adorning

that corner of our backyard. 

The smugness became mine

whenever guinea pig walked by

(at least once the grass grew back). 

And then August came

when like a hydra

7 sinuous heads surfaced,

outpacing the grass,

groping for supremacy 

of their former domain. 

I guess I missed some tendrils. 

Like Hercules,

I pushed a swiftly swinging sword,

decapitating with tentative relish,

wondering if my fate would be more like

Sisyphus’ 

in future seasons. 

Sure enough,

every summer,

the wisteria asserts

it is alive,

and occupant number 5 

weighs heavily on my mind.