Your words are prettier
than mine,
flicked by the fire
of history
and self-righteousness.
I’m not so righteous.
I’m not even self –
just born
of inconceivable
truth.
A plant once grew
for weeks in
an abandoned pot,
revealing itself
just in time to die.
Still, I tended it.
It’s all I know
how to do.
Yet the smoke –
acrid, like you –
keeps rising.