If it looks like a child drew it,
it is probably a tulip
unless it is obviously a daisy.

If it looks like a cartoonist drew it,
it is definitely a daffodil,
often wrongly called a buttercup.

If it looks like an impressionist painted it,
it could be a dahlia, hydrangea,
chrysanthemum, or common thistle—
something extravagantly vague and ornate.

If it looks like an apology,
it better be a rose, and if it is not
a rose but is given as an apology,
it looks like trouble.

If it looks like nobody
would bother to draw or paint it,
it is probably God’s handiwork,

and whatever name we give it—
that low-lying yellow number,
the weedy nondescript ragamuffin,
one of a thousand permutations
of a disc-and-ray-floret pseudanthium—
that is almost certainly not its name:

its true name, its secret name, the name
God alone gives it alone, flower by flower,
across centuries of forgettable fields.