Still-Life

Sunflower, you keep brilliantly the corner
of my table days and no wilting
to be seen to be plucked in July small
enough for a man's table and seed
but a constellation of dreams in the soul-
dark stem-backed chamber you have no
fragrance to withhold your petals flash
like drawn cutlasses you rely on the pack
of foxglove stems against your stem
to hold you upright in the wide fluted arterial of the vase
know I arranged you so you might feel at home
and turn with the sun but
you do not turn to my window at morning
nor to me, the only one who looks back at you,
as I walk past.

Poem originally appeared in Copper Nickel, issue 16, Fall 2011. Reprinted with the permission of the author. All rights reserved.