Questions to answer, from daughters and other people; none are multiple choice

by Daisy Bassen


How old were you,
When you were a little girl?
Is it too sentimental
To contemplate?
I haven’t mentioned violets,
How they grow wild,
Not declared a weed,
Too pretty for that.

The petals are spread
Wide open, impatient
For bees.
You’ve already seen something
Like this, Georgia O’Keeffe,
Porn, if you imagine the woman
Isn’t getting paid 78 cents
On the male dollar,
If she didn’t have a Brazilian,
Furred like a violet’s throat.

My daughters ask questions
I answer. I answer questions
They don’t ask, guessing—
Wrong so often.
No one fires the weatherman
When the snow doesn’t come.


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Daisy Bassen is a poet and practicing physician who graduated from Princeton University’s Creative Writing Program and completed her medical training at The University of Rochester and Brown. Her work has been published in Oberon, McSweeney’s, and PANK among other journals. She was the winner of the So to Speak 2019 Poetry Contest, the 2019 ILDS White Mice Contest and the 2020 Beullah Rose Poetry Prize. She was doubly nominated for the 2019 Best of the Net Anthology and for a 2019 and 2020 Pushcart Prize. She lives in Rhode Island with her family.