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# Fair Flower
- URL: https://www.hawkword.com/poetry/fair-flower/
- Published: 2023-01-23T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2023-01-23T12:00:00.000Z
- Description: a sunflower challenged a rose to a duel: you're not only stubby but you're also cruel those thorns in your side have hurt many a lover and any that pick you will surely discover that your shallow beauty comes only wit...
- Author: A. Gee
- Tags: Poetry, Allpoetry Import, #Import 2026-04-25 19:56

a sunflower challenged a rose to a duel:  
you're not only stubby but you're also cruel  
those thorns in your side have hurt many a lover  
and any that pick you will surely discover  
that your shallow beauty comes only with pain...  
he stopped, feeling no further need to explain

the rose swallowed the barbs and replied with aplomb:  
I may often grace a distraught lover's tomb  
and surely my crimson, the color of blood  
but I can do yellow as well as your bud  
and yes, I don't follow the traveling sun  
its light stops for me, because I am the one

and so they kept at it, a petal for petal  
a flowery duel to test any mettle  
until craven ravens got the sunflower's seeds  
and the rose's great vines overran with green weeds  
and the garden turned fallow, and dirt turned to dust  
for the must be a winner, surely there must.