Anne Marie Rooney was born & raised in New York City. She just earned her M.F.A. from Cornell, where she is now a lecturer of English. She won last year's Iowa Review Award. You can find more of her work in recent issues of Narrative and Columbia, as well as in the Best New Poets Anthology (2008). Flower sonnet Anne Marie Rooney The way bravery tails out sharply like the staunch come-on, creature of more wanting even than me. When we met, my wanting him was tangential to the pinch. It’s like my mother said before she slumped in: like it or like its petals. Even wanting turns over. The way I opened, wanting more even than him. And so I was like the stinger already having scooped whole pits. How does need, and can it really be crossed under? This well from which oh my whole me-ness shakes down. If hot is what he’ll be I’ll spread a honey too. Two can play bee to that pluck. Even smarting is a hole.