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.

Connie Wanek has been writing poems since childhood. She is the author of three books of poetry, most recently On Speaking Terms from Copper Canyon Press, and she has been the recipient of several awards, including the Willow Poetry Prize and the Jane Kenyon Poetry Prize. She was named a Witter Bynner Fellow of the Library of Congress by United States Poet Laureate Ted Kooser. In 2009 Wanek was named the George Morrison Artist of the Year, an honor given to a northern Minnesotan for contributions to the arts over many years. She lives in the country outside Duluth, Minnesota, but often finds herself in a green tent somewhere in the Boundary Waters wilderness.

"Useless or not, poetry is the most concentrated implementation of full consciousness possible."
-Sven Birkerts