Sunflower, A Mercy

You scoop the root-clumped soil

from the cracking cup, break it up

with thumbs, nestle it into the hole

we’ve dug in the yard. Alone:

we each had a cup, a bud—mine

died. Yours will rupture the turf,

butter the sun to submission.

We season. The earth blooms

grace to take it back, & in, & I

hold in my palms the blossom’s weight

as you salvage what seeds remain.

How can you sit in the grass & ask

if we’d split off better, scatter-breezed,

& where you’d go, & where I’d go, to flower?

T. Dallas Saylor is a PhD student in poetry at Florida State University, and he holds an MFA from the University of Houston. His work meditates on the body, especially gender and sexuality, against physical, spiritual, and digital landscapes. He currently lives in Houston, TX.