Already Landed, Watch

Purple blossoms, petals
The size of pinky nails,
Dot the sea-green branches

Of the conqueror bush
No one calls by that name
Since no one’s yet noticed

The habit of the bush
To carpet the landscape.
This is the invader

Above all invaders,
But you don’t know it yet.
Every week, up the slope

From your all-invasive,
Stuccoed subdivision,
More of the scrubby, drab

But for their purple blooms,
Conqueror invaders
Appear. It’s no big deal.

Humans were hard to find,
Once upon a time. Now,
You’re everywhere. Truly,

Did you believe you’d be
The last as well as first
Of the alien waves?