19.1 Summer 2021

Brandon Amico Sunflower

Long unspoken light, loaded with teeth.
A full array threatening from the distended
maw to pepper the dirt with seeds,
life, lion of collapsing star, yawn
and howl becoming echo and flame
that scrapes the weather
from my name. Vibration of sun
shaking suns from out the dirt. She
decays me, she radiates me not. She decays
me, she radiates me not. A full-
stop dripping with implications, a
thousand paths sprouting, syllables
after foundation. Pluralize. Eat, be eaten.
The stalks hum and point toward power.
Investment in the summation
of night. Speak, or be spoken.


Brandon Amico is the author of Disappearing, Inc. (Gold Wake Press, 2019). A 2019 NEA Fellow, his poems have appeared in publications including Best American Poetry 2020, Blackbird, Cincinnati Review, Kenyon Review, and New Ohio Review.