The Grief of Dandelions

I was beloved           a queen, royal aerator, healer

                    brought over from the Old World

                                        in a golden box

dethroned           by the worship of lawns

                              by the Joneses.

See how deep
                                              my taproot goes

and spreads

                    tubers that claw down

                                              and down

                    and clone themselves.

                                                        My lion-toothed leaves

push through gravel           crack

                    cement     thrive on barren.

I love                     in a field

                                                  how my yellow eyes multiply—

a hydra sprouting

                    two heads for every one.

First sun, then moon, then falling stars.

                              Any child knows

to make a wish.

—

Cindy Veach is the author of Monster Galaxy (MoonPath Press, forthcoming), Her Kind (CavanKerry Press), an Eric Hoffer Montaigne Medal finalist, and Gloved Against Blood (CavanKerry Press), a Paterson Poetry Prize finalist and Massachusetts Center for the Book ‘Must Read.’ Her poems have appeared in the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, AGNI, Michigan Quarterly Review and Poet Lore among others. She is the recipient of the Philip Booth Prize and Samuel Allen Washington Prize.