I need help with this poem. Please make suggestions.

Write her Letters and Letters If You Must
For Veronica

Sometimes I make lists:
I do not know how to
wash the dirt off
railroad tracks. Or how to
scuba dive. I can not drive
cars with stick shift. I don’t
know what to do in cemeteries
when I recognize the names
on the granite grave stones.
I don’t know how to be
an older sister. I have forgotten
the quadratic equation. I can
paint fingernails. On an airplane,

a stranger in tattoos and a smile
showed me a picture of his
11-month-old baby girl: “I do not get to see
her much;” “I make sure
she gets what she needs;” “I have gotten used
to it this way.” Sunflowers grew,

unfurled inside of me like suns,
their roots digging down
my legs, my toes, through the carpet
of the airplane floor. Their petals
rising like yellow tongues on my tongue:
“Make sure she knows you love her”
“Make sure she knows”