daisy died the day she was born

a scarecrow blocked her sun and natural forms

pressed strange repellent ways upon her

she lived outside her blackness vaguely white

a bulk unmoving craving for attack

desiring simple contact

                                     no one dared

to know she lived there - no one came

her blackness had its beasts shut tight inside her

 

an icy father (upright) emitting glows

that shed no light her way or for her comfort

a mother stuffing anger down her throat

to whip her own ten-pronged desire into peace

and she - depetalled daisy piece of fluff

fixed touchless out of sight denied by both

one day when asked to draw herself as child

daisy hurled a scattered ball of string

 

hard at the floor and screamed that's me

here she floats dis-spaced a tangled tune

unwanted weightless going nowhere slow

a winter cabbage rootless in the sea

malignant bulb in someone else's earth

a thing of little blood and frozen tears

a cataract of shards that shatters down

so fast it has catastrophe of stillness

 

day's stunted eye - a kind of feel

returns at sunset

                                a yellowness creeps in

beyond the tortures of a seed-inflicted mask

come night the blackness is her own

she burns inside it straining little glows

she has her tiny passions muted songs

until the daylight rattles in her eyes

and chains again cut weals into her brain