“G Man”

When asked to provide an account
he spoke only in pollen drifts.

In the interrogation room the air
was thick with drifting spores.

Taking this as being unco-operative
the attending agent fetched freedom tools.

Outer leaves were sliced off to start
but vines, thick and choking, grew back

to fill the holes left behind. He smiled.
Each visible tooth a bud about to open.

Attempts to dislodge the subject from the chair
were unsuccessful as he had rooted through
the concrete floor, sending fingers deep
below the complex, into the vengeful soil.

Insurgent! We cried, Unpatriotic betrayer!
but he just laughed in swallow murmurations

before expanding like alliums in May,
growing to grab the walls with bindweed tendrils.
Shots were fired but only blooms exploded.
Still, he grew, shattering the one way glass,
his smile now stretching from wall to wall,
his hair digging into the ceiling tile cracks.
Agents Symonds and Mikowski were lost, bodies
converted to compost. We sealed the bomb doors

cut off section 4A, but even now the metal buckles,
Even now we have teams working around the clock

ready with secateurs held in shaking hands
watching for that first suggestion of green.