Dina & Darlene
In the row of sunflowers in the middle of the forest, Dina & Darlene lick the stem of a few, the roughness cutting their tongue, they are bleeding and putting a facial tissue to their tongue, dabbing it and pulling it away, blood mixed with saliva, they are bleeding from the mouth, swallowing the blood, the sunflowers are dead, their heads drooping toward the ground, they are black with no seeds, hulls of seeds everywhere, Dina & Darlene are bleeding, holding their mouths.
Dina & Darlene swallow a sunflower whole, fight a blackbird for the shell of the head of another, devour them in one gulp. In bed, they rub their belly because they feel so sick, their stomach turns, their stomach hurts, what is happening, their stomach hurts, and when they open their mouths to moan they can’t because it feels as if something is choking them from the inside.
Dina & Darlene stare at the back of their throats in the mirror; all they can see is a black leaf, what remains of an October deadhead.
Dina & Darlene will wake up in the bed in the middle of the forest to a sunflower sprouted from their throats, tall and heliotropic, trying to find the sun under a canopy of low-hanging clouds. “Wait for the sun in Los Angeles,” they tell the sunflower, “wait until we marry River Phoenix.”