do not underestimate the bindweed,
its need for wreathe and stifle rooted deep
in its name - hence the blossom, blinding, white,
as chaste as a tyrant's dream.
like an ancient crime, an unpaid debt,
it returns to haunt a scene. by cover
of darkness, beneath the fields or a lawn,
it sends out feelers, fires a riot,
rises glorious in green. behind the barn,
convolved in cypress or bean, the unkind
climber spirals; a seething, creeping spume
it twines up walls and roan, choking
windows and drain, trumpeting, binding, abiding,
till nothing breathes but bindweed, and nothing more is seen.
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