Matthew Gellman

Inflorescence

As they age, sunflowers tend to turn away
from one another. The thousand tinier flowers
in the center of the face tilt close to the sun.
I watch the one I’ve picked out weather
the morning while I wait for test results:
a pain creeping the rim of my left testicle,
the sting of urine. In a textbook once, I read
about a common moth called the heart and dart
which overwinters until the promise of steady
light becomes evident. Compelled into air
by nectar, lapping the field that has just
barely woken, their wings find the uncertain
hope for sustenance enough of a reason
to give up the dark. Much of what I’ve wanted,
when I’ve gotten it, has abraded me: a hand
pulling me forward into a fanatically false
kind of warmth. But this morning the sunflower
rests. It is quiet here. Quiet enough to share
the same field, wanting my piece of the light.