Bronx Heirlooms
I hadn’t seen a sunflower in real life
until 7th grade when Ms. Garcia took our class
to the Botanical Garden though we all wanted to go to the Bronx Zoo
so girls could slip in between the bars of the lion’s den
and make out with boys. We had spent
all of 6th period learning how to draw sunflowers
so we wouldn’t embarrass our principal by mistaking them
for daffodils. They fenced up the sky
so pigeons couldn’t shit
on the fields of Azaleas and Magnolias;
Lobelias and Narcissi and yes, I knew
the names of all the flowers I had never seen,
spelled strange and unbelievable like Rose-
zanay and Nateasheia. Demesha.
And La’Condria. Names mispronounced
as weed when translated out of their mother-
tongue. What is a name but a translation of
color and what other way to know one’s color
than through the pronunciation of their name. Locked
in the conservatory, our teachers told us we weren’t allow
to touch anything. Not even the precious, dead-
headed flowers awaiting repatriation, their bodies crunching
beneath our feet. We returned home in a single-file line—
aphids marching up Fordham Road past weeds that chewed
through the concrete basketball courts
of the project buildings that bouqueted
our bodies in one-bedroom apartments.
