Sunflowers in Daddy’s Garden

On the corner of Irving and Humboldt,

I grew in a vegetable patch 

where you planted sunflower seeds 

because they were, and still are, my favorite. 

I collected tiny silky inchworms 

shaded by tall green stalks 

supporting slender yellow petals 

surrounding fuzzy brown pupils, 

my sunny florid friends. 

I helped you plant tomato seeds, 

dirtying a smaller, smoother version

of your callused hand. 

I found my place there. 

There—in your organic canvas, 

a portrait tinged by your green thumb,

a photosynthetic masterpiece 

of lettuces, radishes, rosemary, 

Italian parsley, basil, 

onions, carrots, cucumbers, 

chives and sweet pea pods— 

all cultivated in botanic symphony. 

A medley of peppers, 

like Chinese Thai Dragons of red and green,

which you made my boyfriends eat raw

as a sort of hot but sweet initiation,

perhaps for your own amusement—

perhaps for ours. 

(Little did they know 

the green ones are the hottest.)

When I go home 

to the corner of Irving and Humboldt,

I will still find you 

swaddled in tangling tomato vines

where we scattered seeds so many years ago. 

I’ll crawl back 

into our jungle of coiling, climbing tendrils

to meet you under our six-foot sunflowers,

the ones you grow 

for me 

every summer.