Some say you have four petals,
I’ve counted five, even six,
a ruffled pinwheel at your middle,
unabashed, you gather beneath mailboxes,
telephone poles, and parking strips,
squeezed into crevices and staking a claim
for your own brilliant gold,
bursting onto the scene like a movie star
who got her first break in a spring production
laughing up and down Sunset Boulevard
where admirers point to each appearance
wishing you to stay open
while everything else folds,
in these months you’ve made a come back,
your silken touch reminding me of a dress I once owned
before I knew anything about you or California,
backless and the same color as orange sherbet
flaring around my hips, and how wearing it
made me feel at the center of my own story.