Tumbler

Salsola tragus, Forest & Kim Starr
via Wikimedia Commons

Just the one: not a saltimbanque family
like Picasso portrayed; neither an animal
nor mineral, but isolated, vegetable. You
go rounding off down the road, diaspore
with a thousand fingers all splayed open,
then spring back from asphalt over and
over, spilling propagule after each roll.
Gymnast weed, o brittle wanderer from
the steppes, you snuck in cross-border,
pile up along fence-lines; every cowboy
from Tin Pan Alley sings your name, but
none know your empty heart like I do.