The Assignment

I came across this poem in an old copy of Yankee Magazine that I was going through for the recipes. It has stuck in my head for a couple of days, so I thought I'd better copy it before recycling.

The Assignment
by Caroline Towers Porter

A daffodil is not an answer
to who-is-your-hero in a fourth
grade essay. Only Superman
and Jesus and Dad and Mother
Teresa can be correct.
I had to go home and rewrite mine
about a person, but later I sat
squirming without a name
in my head. The daffodils sipped
from the bottle on the dresser.
Their thick stems had made a loud
stalky sound when I picked them,
and I kept them for their lion-
hearted courage, for their laughing
roar at dense and heavy winter, their
mocking manes shaped like the sun.
They invited me to crawl inside
their gaping mouths and promised
not to bite, but to swallow me up,
digesting my hesitance, making me
know what it means to be brave,
a spine strong as a pillar to push
back the snow.