Daffodil

Don’t you know, sweetheart,
less is more?
Giving yourself away
so quickly
with your eager trumpet,
April’s rentboy
in your flock of clones,
unreasonably cheerful, cellulose,
as yellow as a crow’s foot—please.
I don’t get you.
Maybe it’s me,
always loving what I can’t have,
the bulb refusing itself,
perennial challenge.
I’ve never learned
how to handle kindness
from strangers.
It’s uncomfortable, uncalled-for.
I’d rather have mulch
than three blithe sepals from you.
I’m into piss and vinegar,
brazen disregard,
the minimum-wage indifference
of bark, prickly pear.
Flirtation’s tension:
I dare, don’t dare.
But what would you know
about restraint,
binge-drinking
your way through spring,
botany’s twink bucked
by lycorine, lethal self-esteem?
You who come and go
with the seasons,
bridge and tunnel.
You’re all milk and no cow—
intimacy for beginners.
The blonde-eyed boy stumbling home.
If I were you, I’d pipe down.
Believe me,
I’ve bloomed like you before.