Yellow Wild Flower
I can eat as much as a big man. Wiry stems scarf up
sunlight, roots muscle through dirt getting at water.
If I could walk, I would run. Instead I shoot up
starburst buds and pinwheels of thick yellow.
Behind each bloom that’s going white at the edges,
about to look nibbled or crumpled or done,
there’s another spikey ball, ready. If I could walk,
I would never sit down. I stand straight, pixie cut
ruffled in the wind. There’s no swaying, there’s no
lolling a lush peony head toward all I want, hinting
hard. If I’m hungry, I say it. I eat and grow. I dare you
to scan this meadow and tell me you’re not thinking
yellow, yellow, yellow.
–Laura Cronk
Happy birthday, Laura (pictured above with a friend and colleague).
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Author: The Best American Poetry
