In the democracy of daisies
every blossom has one vote.
The question on the ballot is
Does he love me?
...
Each picture is heartbreakingly banal,
a kitten and a ball of yarn,
a dog and bone.
The paper is cheap, easily torn.
...
I don't know if we're in the beginning
or in the final stage.
-- Tomas Tranströmer
...
There is menace
in its relentless course, round and round,
describing an ellipsoid,
an airy prison in which a young girl
...
Before you knew you owned it
it was gone, stolen, and you were a fool.
How you never felt it is the wonder,
heavy and thick,
...
She leaned over the sink
her weight on her toes
and applied lipstick
in quick certain strokes
...
The wind cooled as it crossed the open pond
and drove little waves toward us,
brisk, purposeful waves
that vanished at our feet, such energy
...
We used to play, long before we bought real houses.
A roll of the dice could send a girl to jail.
The money was pink, blue, gold as well as green,
and we could own a whole railroad
...
Mittens are drying on the radiator,
boots nearby, one on its side.
Like some monstrous segmented insect
the radiator elongates under the window.
...
Connie Wanek is an American poet. Life She was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and grew up in Las Cruces, New Mexico. In 1989 she moved with her family to Duluth, Minnesota where she now lives. Her work appeared in Poetry, The Atlantic Monthly, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Quarterly West, Poetry East, Prairie Schooner and Missouri Review. She has published three books of poetry, and served as co-editor of the comprehensive historical anthology of Minnesota women poets, called To Sing Along the Way (New Rivers Press, 2006). Ted Kooser, Poet Laureate of the United States (2004–2006), named her a Witter Bynner Fellow of the Library of Congress for 2006. Awards Willow Poetry Prize Jane Kenyon Poetry Prize. 2006 Witter Bynner Fellowship of the Library of Congress by United States Poet Laureate Ted Kooser. 2009 George Morrison Artist of the Year)
Daisies
In the democracy of daisies
every blossom has one vote.
The question on the ballot is
Does he love me?
If the answer's wrong I try another,
a little sorry about the petals
piling up around my shoes.
Bees are loose in the fields
where daisies wait and hope,
dreaming of the kiss of a proboscis.
We can't possibly understand
what makes us such fools.
I blame the June heat
and everything about him.
Submitted by Venus
What is the poem After Us really about?