Sunup to Noon Tonight
A constellation of
black-eyed susans
framed in the screen
of our kitchen door—
each dark peering eye
dead center in its radiant
gold-fringe petal-collar looks
as if it had
burst
from its core
an instant before
Though each susan keeps still
at the end of her stem
as if snapshot-clicked
except for a
nudging breeze
that streams between
mobs of livid phlox
the color of anger and lust
and daylily sprays which
like splinters of sun blaze
(having been carelessly
dropped by Helios
into our cool green garden
as he hauled his blistering
load of heat and light
from sunup to noon
tonight)
Jim Culleny; August 2009