on the backporch listening to the rain
drinking coffee hiding behind
a holly and honeysuckle wall. Monday
and I’m off work. plodding away
between sips at my translations of bird song

the image of the yard overrun in honeysuckle
makes me smile. invasive and beautiful
as quiet piano music, expansive as kudzu
on Pine Mountain, ever-present as my neighbors
smoking their late morning weed

like gunshots after sunset in the Spring
(keep them property values down, boys!)
let honeysuckle choke out the sirens, too
let breathe and sip, the dogs and me don’t care