Subversive gardening, I am
an urban vine unwilling
to be tethered to one person’s possession.
I will not become

part of anyone’s landscape
of ownership dispute. I will

grow as my environment allows. I will
become a grubby urban palimpsest
to be layered upon by a future you and me.

Note: John Ashbery refers to grubby urban palimpsests in his book Reported Sightings: Art Chronicles, 1957-1987, ed. David Bergman (Knopf, 1989).