Sunflower

black eyes and bent head

downcast rounded face reading

gold hair - who are you?

-

I envy my neighbor’s garden.

-

Beyond the fence, its careful sprawl

and lush labyrinths leave

me breathing in shallow gasps

as if smelling

coarsely

through my throat

will let me taste

the future as I toil.

-

My neck grows sore

comparing

each spear-straight stem,

each glossy fruit.

-

The plot’s prize is the sunflower bravely craning against the sun,

yet tilted by its own weight

deep in thought.

-

Bees hover, so enraptured

by each yellow blade

that they dare not land.

-

My neighbor’s garden wilts as summer wanes

and winter bounds down the block.

-

Mine has flourished

under gentle scrutiny,

but it is a ready bed that still lacks

just what I so covet.

-

Under the shadowed disguise

of early morning

I snatch across the pickets,

daggers in the dark,

and wiggle free

one black seed.

-

The soil will soon freeze,

hostile, so I sleep

with a bead of beauty

beneath my pillow, and dream

a perfect blossom sprouting,

twisting along the fault lines of my heart.

-

Awake, I feel it rooting there.

Petals like glowing fingers

strumming, searing

the undersides of my skin.

-

Still cold

longing for spring, I sit alone

with the throbbing of that flower.

-

Gracious in its rhythm deep within me

it presses increasingly outward until it seems I will split

of joy

or more

and fall.

-

Yes, I am guilty of a selfish theft.

-

But also so possessed by this growing seedling

that even my eyes

closed in condemnation

leave concentric yellow circles

bursting, pulsing

to the subtle cadence of my lust.

-

deep in my new heart

sunflower petals tickle

and then they explode