Weed Puller by Theodore Roethke

Weed Puller

Under the concrete benches,

Hacking at black hairy roots,—

Those lewd monkey-tails hanging from drainholes,—

Digging into the soft rubble underneath,

Webs and weeds,

Grubs and snails and sharp sticks,

Or yanking tough fern-shapes,

Coiled green and thick, like dripping smilax,

Tugging all day at perverse life:

The indignity of it!—

With everything blooming above me,

Lilies, pale-pink cyclamen, roses,

Whole fields lovely and inviolate,—

Me down in that fetor of weeds,

Crawling on all fours,

Alive, in a slippery grave.