Forget-Me-Not
I’m like so many things that move you –
another tiny beauty to look at closely
so you can feel the magnitude
of your own sensitivity.
After all, it’s unbearably hot,
and you stop just to look at me.
You are so pleased
by your own observations,
congratulate yourself for noticing
the details of my delicate flower:
yellow center, splash of white,
and, of course, my predominant blue.
I watch you. You are
changing: the more you notice
about me the more beautiful
you become.
This has no effect on me.
I’m not like you. I don’t need
to uncover my own beauty
in the things I see.
Sally Bliumis-Dunn’s poems have appeared the New York Times, Paris Review, PBS NewsHour, Plume, Poetry London, Prairie Schooner, RATTLE, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-day and Ted Kooser’s “American Life in Poetry”. Read more.
Sally Bliumis-Dunn’s poem “Forget-Me-Not” is from Talking Underwater (Wind Publications, 2007) and is reprinted here by permission of the author.