Systemic

Dandy dandelion, you flower in the fissures
            on the median of the Bronx River Pkwy
            with black top gravel and what once
            was a squirrel, now a velvet strip
dandy dandelion, you’re seen to be a weed
            your presence on lawns a sign
            there goes the neighborhood, but here
            on the grass patched shoulder, oh
dandy dandelion, you proliferate with next
            to nil, cut down, yet still growing, and
            it seems, botanically, this world is out
            to get you, even though you try, sweet
dandy dandelion, to brighten up the bleak
            landscape you’re allowed until you aren’t
            I want to bring just one powder puff to
            acres upon acres of field, wish, and blow

Seán Griffin received an MFA in Creative Writing from Manhattanville College. Seán's writing has appeared in The Southampton Review, Selcouth Station Press, Impossible Archetype, Dust Poetry Magazine, Sonic Boom, and Cathexis Northwest Press, with poetry in The Mud Season Review, Mineral Lit Magazine, and The Hellebore forthcoming. Seán teaches writing at Concordia College of New York, is an editor for Inkwell Literary Journal, and lives in New York with three dogs.