They Named Me Daisy

They Named Me Daisy

They named me Daisy without

Realizing that yellow and white

Would come to define me. Haze

Bloomed in sheets, still life with

Weeds, and adventure was not

A book title but a lifestyle, seasoned

With lemon squeeze, personified

Sunshine. Porcelain wrists, butter

Crackling in the pan by the hearth

Specified our home, bright speckles

Between breaths. Stumbling beside

Kindness is a daffodil, growing

From a garden watered with lemonade,

Vodka later, but hushed by the cream

Spreading. Guess the shape

Of intensity: seven petals, the button

Center gold, honeycomb hair,

Privilege in the form of flora. I

Didn’t understand sunflowers until

I scattered seeds, the dotted lines

Imbued in the highway with only

Direction for stability. Grow, shine,

Blossom with angst, exposing the bloom,

The sexual acidity on a school bus,

And here I am, spun among Autumn’s

Glow, sunset spilling over peach

Hands proving that I am my name,

But my name is not me.