In the Back of the Real

Railroad yard in San Jose
I wandered desolate in front of a tank factory
and sat on a bench near the switchman's shack.
A flower lay on the hay on the asphalt highway
--the dread hay flower
I thought--It had a brittle black stem
and corolla of yellowish dirty spikes like Jesus' inchlong crown,
and a soiled dry center cotton tuft like a used shaving brush
that's been lying under the garage for a year.
Yellow, yellow flower, and flower of industry,
tough spiky ugly flower,
flower nonetheless,
with the form of the great yellow rose in your brain!
This is the flower of the World.