What hour do you swivel open
to unfurl your corolla the color of royals?
It’s early, I know, before sunrise.
Your pollinators up at dawn, too,
to tumble down your white throat.
I pet you as I pass, velvet bell horn
under my thumb. Some say
your vines are invasive—
if given the space, you are voracious,
twining around sunflower stalk,
stair rail, fence. But by afternoon
you begin to fold the parasol of your face.
How many ways to say
your blooms die each day:
Monday’s flower is not Tuesday’s.
You blossom like shark teeth.
