Dandelion (Compositae: Taraxacum officinale)

 19th century lithograph by Carl Friedrich Schmidt

Dant y Llew, like Dent de Lion
sounding fierce with ragged teeth;
as kids we called it ‘wet-the-bed’
(like piss-en-lit), shreds
of meaning to compose a memory:

Pulling the yellow heads off the stalks
we’d sit on the grass plucking each petal,
daring each other to nibble, and then
“you’ll wet the be-ed” from the girls
and we thought of them wetting the bed
too and plucked again as, tooth
against tooth, we dared damp sheets.

On waste ground or green fields
they have always infused
memory’s sweet wine
calling back lost hours:

Blow on white feathers – one-o-clock, two …
drifting through passing years they shine
on every roadside edge and seedy garden
keeping their own time after time.