You Will Get No Roses From Me Poem by Allan Thorne

You will get no roses from me:
Over-tended, overfed, pruned, and powdered,
Cut with shears in leather gloved hands.
No showy blow-bag flowers
Shouting, “I love you, I love you”
Like a twelve year old brat in the street.

No hot house orchid either,
Exquisite and exotic,
Like a sickly child with blue white skin
Who must be carefully watched and cared for,
Whose condition is discussed in whispers,
In the warm, wet, decadent air.

I will give you sunflowers instead
Rank wild things jostling and bobbing in the sun,
Pulled with naked hands
From a ditch by the side of the road.
Something that will bloom long and lasting
Something that can thrive in stony ground
And feed the birds long after the petals have dropped.
Yes, I will give you sunflowers.