The Haunting of Scrap Woods

We have no value
Ecologically.
We’re second growth, infected,

If not wholly made up of,
Invasive species.
We’re weedy. We grow
Into the margins

Of the suburbs that slaughtered
Our predecessors
Who were mostly no concern
Of ours. We’re the woods

Of, for instance, New Jersey.
We’re whatever mutants thrive.
We have our swamp fires.