Ambivalent

Sunflower

I've been planted

with sunflower seeds,

been irrigated once a day

with condition of conceived forecast,

been left under the sun to grow and burn,

So I grew and bloomed and blossomed and flowered

and opened my virgin petals for the hungry hornet to see,

I felt the sting and the slit and the pain and the prick,

My pistil now empty, I ached and weeped

for the hornet fluttered and flew and travelled,

pollen on his lips, I wept and shattered,

I birthed a daughter, beautiful and tall,

but I dwindled and shrunk and weakened and waned,

felt fingers on my stem, pulling and plucking,

Petals depleted, dried and drained,

wasted away, a hornet on its way