When I decapitated the sunflowers today, the birds had already
pecked them mostly bald. I sawed through those thick necks with
silver shears, squash leaning to cup falling petals and black seeds in her
green palms. I was cutthroat, ripping this food from the garden. I knew
how fierce and warlike the small wrens had become, and, sure enough,
there were the fearless nails in my scalp, clawing for my soul.
The flowers are furry, full moons without their petals, hanging low
in my basement, eerie and waiting out the season. I take enough
seeds to bring us blooms again next summer. The wrens chirp angry
at the window, but I see them eye the gray sky, feel how they tire from
resisting migration’s pull. As much as I practice the rhythms of change,
I still can’t soften my body toward its metal mouth of violence.
When the afternoon starts to hurry us into dark with its flat palm,
when it tries to shush us still, maybe then we summon the burning.
There it turns like a yellow wheel within: sunflowers crying petals and seeds
under summer sun, our feathers aflame with alarm above our precious garden
as we dive-bomb into the beast full of all our sharpness and all our softness.
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