DANDELION

Why can’t we be more like the dandelion,
hollow-stemmed, milky-sapped?
Wouldn’t sex be sexier if sex were asexual?
Just because we possess stamens
and pistils doesn’t mean
we have to use them. Let’s fertilize ourselves.
What’s the evolutionary advantage
of going gaga and wobbly in the knees?
Don’t you get tired of the complex
human complexities? Why can’t we travel
all night on an all-night train and wake up
as something else, a taproot, say. Let’s be savvy
and adaptive and flaunt our tiny florets.
Wouldn’t you rather by-pass the awkward
introductions and clone yourself? Don’t think
invasive weed, think fairy clock, rosette
of deeply-lobed leaves. It might be fun to pop up
unwelcome and anywhere, the front lawn of City Hall.
Why can’t we be more like the humble dandelion
in a field of humble dandelions? Who says
you can’t throw off your body and float like a filament
in the wind? Let’s get drunk as puffballs
in a roadside ditch, let’s make babies
without reproductive organs or classes
in synchronized breathing. Three days old,
this one lies on a blanket beneath the maple tree:
oh prince of the meadow, bright yellow flowerhead.

Published in Maisonneuve
Reprinted in Best Canadian Poetry in English, 2009