None of this Has Gone Quiet: Molly Dawe

May 1, 2020, Kate Belew With Molly Dawe (Ottawa, ON)

I put the sunflowers in the jar on the table, I mean

to say I culled them, their tight heads, unfurling  

I wanted to bring whatever yellow I could to this

whatever goldenrod, whatever marigold, I wanted 

to believe in calendula. Listen, I know 

none of this has gone quiet into the night, not

a single burial. And I return to this altar 

where I sacrificed myself, offered myself up to you 

tomorrow. A strange, ahead thing in which

we could never exist, or exist and everything changed 

and when I open my window to that thought

the room flooded, the sunflowers adrift.