Sunflower

The burial was easy.

I took it in my hands to thrust the shovel,

turned the earth outside itself—

lime-sticky breeze,

gold-roaring sun.

You asked me, softly,

would the dirt simply crack like a bone

or rise, a dusty mirage?

I shrugged and patted the ruddy soil

dust-sucking the waters away.

Summer burned X on the spot.

It started deep in a pickle-jar,

Frankenstein limb

driving keen from a humbug shell.
Relentless,

it shoved its rude way

through the wormy soil,

a thousand toes

spread in a net of white eels.

Taking root in her belly of glass.

We carried her out to the garden.

This is where we re-buried;

tied her to the stake

like a bad witch,

letting her burn in the sun.

Still, the green bone lengthened,

turning the gutted earth,

wind raging back, the wounded sky

bloated with lavender storms.

It was then, along the xylem spine,

wrists opened their chlorophyll palms

where lastly,
grinning with sticky bees,

her huge head rose in a halo of gold—

her face in the sunflower dark.