What I Remember About Her Poem by RIC BASTASA

it was the first time for me to
see a sunflower
the first time really despite the fact
that in the barrio where i live
my mama had a sunflower garden,
and

it was Tita who made me see a
different sunflower, the one which
made me open my mouth wide as
though i were a kind of a whale,
sifting planktons in the deep,

the world is a sunflower, it is another
sunflower that van gogh painted,
it was so touching, as though someone
died in the mountain, killed without
mercy, waving a white flag for a
surrender,

and Tita spoke about a sunflower
and she was not looking at us, but
at the window, where a big wall
shut us all from the trees, a meter
away, a dead end of some shallow
interpretations about life, about who
we are, when we are not waking.