Zoa Coudret

SPITE

I bought you a plant 
and you left before
I could give it to you.

It’s a ficus, but now
it occurs to me
you had wanted

a cactus.
It doesn’t matter;
we’re both uprooted 

now, spread over
infertile ground.
I think I like the ficus

better anyway, it gets me,
its leaves won’t wither
and brown in my care.

It wields no thorns to stab 
my unguarded skin,
and when it grows strong and green

I will gift it to your nemesis
(we are good friends now)
on her next birthday. I will tell her

its name is Emily, and it will sit 
next to the other dead and dying plants
in her window, thirsty and scorched.