A List of Small Wonders pt. 5

Daffodils

Although one of the most common species, my favorite flower is the daffodil. When we lived in Baltimore, they sprouted from every median, every plant bed, every spare inch of soil. On the way to and from school, I often tried to get my mother to pull over so that I could look at them. I was enchanted by their sunny yellows and creamy whites, the frilly skirts sheltered inside six petals, their scalloped hems. The way they tilted side to side in the breeze. The way they looked like tiny mouths announcing the arrival of spring. In elementary school, I would sit on the mulched beds during sunny recess and talk into their tiny mouths, asking how they were doing and imagining that they answered back. I hated the way that they bled clear juice when you cut their stems, and always refused when my father told me to bring some inside. The violence was too much to bear. So I enjoy them now from afar, greeting them with a smile instead of scissors. Wordsworth spoke of them best: “A poet could not but be gay, / In such a jocund company…”

A List of Small Wonders pt. 4

To Trevor

Before I met you, I had been craning my neck for so long it had stretched to thousands of feet, just searching for a glimmer of sunlight. I had no idea, but I was heliotropic for you. On our first date, I traversed the last four feet across the table and my sunflower-face became illuminated in a circular smile. This summer I will pick up my stringy roots, hold them in my leaf-hands, and walk three hundred and sixty eight miles to you. My stem will lengthen down musty corridors to find you singing in the Brooklyn subway. The best part of being with you is that you are heliotropic too. When you look at me, you are just as blinded by me as I am by you. A sun and a sunflower and a sunflower and a sun. Symmetry.

We have been communicating via haiku for a few months–or senryu, to be more specific. Upon waking I send you a message:

chlorophyll in veins

petals soaking up your sun

i’m dazzled by you.

You respond:

no dear, i’m the plant.

you, nutrient enriched soil

my grubby dirt girl

A List of Small Wonders Pt. 3

Sweet Miracles

One day, they finally arrived in the mail from Amazon: Miracle Berries. Plucked from the Synsepalum dulcificum plant, the berries contain a chemical called miraculin. After a few minutes, it binds to the taste buds and alters our perception of sour foods to become unbelievably sweet. My mother, father, sister, sister’s boyfriend, and I crowded into the kitchen with the tingling anticipation of celebrities taking ayahuasca on a desert retreat. Ritualistically, we all put the tablets on our tongues and let them dissolve in a fizz of acidic fruitiness. This is as close as my family will ever get to condoning drug use. 10 minutes later, we had assembled a cornucopia of Guinness, limes, lemons, Sour Patch Kids, pickles, and hot sauce. Bravely, I stepped forth and put the first slice of lime in my mouth. Biting down, I felt a candy-like explosion of pure sweetness hit my tongue. My eyes widened in shock. I spent the evening sucking on entire limes, letting the saccharine taste overcome me again and again. Finally, the tang of sourness returned and my lips puckered. The sweetness had left me as quickly as it had arrived.