Yes, we still have sunflowers.
Their language is dead.
Flowers have only one meaning:
drinking water, rationed.
We plant them on floating plastic rafts,
their golden heads find
no sun to turn to but metallic clouds.
Pale roots swing and sway
in the iridescent pond to suck poison.
They drop blurred reflections
on the water until the radiation levels drop.
We brand this phyto, short for
phytoremediation, meaning plants can clean
contamination. Five irresistible letters
when they shimmer blueish on a bottle
in a city of razor fences, buzzing like a question.
About the Author:
Özge Lena is an internationally published poet who appears in The London Magazine, Oxford Climate Society Blog, Mslexia, International Times, and in numerous magazines and anthologies across continents. She recently presented her poetic approach, “Catapoetics: Poetry of the Catastrophe“, at the International Conference on Poetry Studies, Birkbeck, University of London, following the publication of her catapoetry article in Modron Magazine. Her poetry has received Pushcart Prize, Editor’s Choice Award, The Best Spiritual Literature Award, and Best of the Net nominations and was shortlisted for the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition, The Plough Poetry Prize, Ralph Angel Poetry Prize, and the Black Cat Poetry Press Nature Prize.