Weed Killer

Today I put the garden to the torch.
I get off on massacres, sure,
but there's nothing
can match a good purge.
It's like treating your ego
to a Turkish bath.

Death has a repertoire,
ivy leaves closing like a child's fist
round a pebble.
When I pin them beneath
the nozzle's hot tooth,
keggy dandelions flashbulb
to blazing fright-wigs;
a single pass
fuses languid green reachers
to the cracked slabs they loll across.
Stray corollas blister
then time lapse
back to shrivelled nubs.
Red blooms wear skirts of fire.

Culls are all about
what you spare;
the counterbalanced spice
of flames and mercy.
I strafe,
fringing the good stuff.
Celandine stems turn to hot toffee,
crowns pinch shut,
then they fall
like hemlocked praetors.