Dayflower

Mornings, you show yourself

in purple blooms,                               

three petals each, the anthers

golden and exposed. Too soon,

they fold and close, and the sun

renders you unremarkable.

You wish you could blossom

without the commitment to brevity

each opening entails. You wish

you could go on without

depriving the overgrowth of color.

But by midday, without fail,

you conceal your sex

in your sepals, your scruples,

withdraw into a crowd

of white campion—that common weed

that blooms unabashedly

into the evening,

having its way

with the same hard light

that sleeves your purple in green.

Blake Campbell grew up in a Pennsylvania farmhouse and now lives in Salem, Massachusetts. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Painted Bride Quarterly, The Dark Horse, The Worcester Review, Lambda Literary, and Fulcrum, among other print and online publications. A Pushcart Prize nominee, he is the recipient of the 2015 Aliki Perroti and Seth Frank Most Promising Young Poet Award from the Academy of American Poets and a 2020 Emerging Artist Award from the St. Botolph Club Foundation.