Prompt #5: Jenn-Jenn

The Problem of Knotwood

In the garden of bricks, mortar, & bamboo
a rockwall lay toppled & scattered in knotwood
stalks rising up to our chests,
granite markers in pieces
like the remains of a distant war,
of human works that crumbled,
covered by time & reclaimed by earth.

Reclaimed: the bamboo slashed down,
we remade the rockwall with stones four of us
hoisted together & laid sod there
on a grey day, making it the deepest green.

Reclaimed: Jenn bought this house to dismantle
the destruction of a slumlord--the neighbors
were anxious, then watched, then brought pizza
as a gift for her replacing the jungle next door
(where the tenants used to slaughter
chickens in full view of the children)
with a lawn.

She said, I've found a calling I can
Live inside. It's the shadow
of her own monumental undertaking--
when one works, one gets
to go home at the end of the day,
whereas she lived in this mess,
one floor up from torn up floors
& FUBAR subfloors. How can you sleep?, I
asked & she said, Sleep?

Yes, but the house morphed
into this beautiful place--French doors,
new egress, responsible tile,
even a baby stumbling around--
I almost wish the Ecuadorian immigrants
who trashed it had lived in
this incarnation: they might have
sat in the backyard & felt the grass.

But no, their roots were shallow,
replanted where the jobs were, or
where the feds wouldn't find.

Knotwood is an invasive species
like slumlords in a neighborhood,
bedbugs in an apartment across the road,
they had to throw out all,
all their belongings!
The only solution to the problem
of knotwood is to pull out the bad
roots, plant something stronger
in its place.