As punishment for loving Apollo too much, Clytie, a nymph,
was buried alive and transformed into a sunflower.
If in America we name only what we see,
is not every girl born a ghost?
Not every girl buried alive for want of anything,
asked to inhale & exhale her own failure
to blossom. Clytie, sun-starved seedling
of every handmaid, who, above ground, baskets
wildflowers & engages in the dreamiest arts. My country
loves me, my country loves me not. My country
loves me. A chorus of girls beckoning the nymph upright
through the earth. Look there— midday & the sunflower
the only flower to refuse the shadows. To refuse
to be named or plucked, swiveling its face upon each new
hour into the brassy eye sockets of the sun. Because
in America, every girl learns to look at the brightest sky
without breaking— & to ration a nation’s
petals without mistaking self-sufficiency for hope.
–
Susan L. Leary’s poetry has been published in such places as Arcturus (Chicago Review of Books), Posit Journal, and Pretty Owl Poetry. She is the author of Contraband Paradise, forthcoming from Main Street Rag in 2021, as well as the chapbook This Girl, Your Disciple with Finishing Line Press. She teaches English composition at the University of Miami, where she is also enrolled in the university’s M.F.A. program in creative writing.