Spring

That night, I buried the salt that had poured from my eyes and dried on my palm, under mud and molasses

And poured a tall glass of red wine allover it

Some of the wine spilled out of the tub and trickled down the terracotta which seemed to then cry red tears

Next morning, a sunflower headed it’s way out the soil

A yellow, smiling sunflower.

How did I know? I saw her dancing to folk music with the cuckoo

And the wind was so happy when he saw her dance

That he bosomed her and together they swayed,

It looked like the yolk of an egg sprinting and giggling, and the happiness in the air was the same as

My mother’s eyes when she befits her pearls with her white silk and hopes for him to look her way

This was a sunflower that didn’t mourn even as the dusk and the night conspired against her and both clicked their tongues in,

She held her stench high and became a storyteller, a gifted one at that

“When the blue mist fades, ” she said, “a thousand figures will arrive, with breasts like blooming lilies and hair like molten lava and wisdom like no man shall ever possess,”

The moon listened, and the leaves listened and the owl listened as she added

“And the walls of flimsy righteousness will crumble”

Do sunflowers laugh?

Her laughter rose high over the mountains and thus she bore me proud

For at first I’d thought they were incantations of love,her stories

And would guillotine my breath, the wine would know it all

But Spring it brought, and Spring is the season of vengeance, taught the sunflower

Take the sun and throw the light all around you, burning all you can, taught the sunflower,

For the light will be soft and dewy, not the bloodshed kind

And the sunflowers that will be born nonetheless, will never mourn.