I am unsure as to where this flower ends or where it began.
The small connecting limbs, hidden behind the round
series of heads, the seeding centers, their odd tears
around the edges like teeth. There is something oddly
promising about these flowers—you see, they have
appeared in my poems before. As children, as wind, even
a voice—never as themselves, in all their fierceness, in
all their beauty. I love them, you know, like I love so
many things that are hidden out-of-doors. Under all
that sun, behind another root system, in the neighbor’s
backyard. Sometimes I spy them in stranger places,
a vacant frying pan, pieces shredded in a bird’s
nest. You could bring them to me, and I would plant
them. I could bring them to me, and I’d be happy.
In the quiet way that these flowers are beautiful.
Bring them. I promise, like wind.
August 1, 2014, MLT