The phrase "lily of a man" as it is used in line 3 of Gary Soto's poem most closely means an anxious weakling, as is said in option C and explained below.
To find the answer, we used our knowledge of context clues.
<h3>What are context clues?</h3>
Context clues are any words or phrases that help us figure out the meaning or connotation of other words or phrases in the same context. Here, we need to understand the meaning of "lily of a man."
The context clues used for that is "A coward I am not," the phrase that comes immediately before "lily of a man." Since both phrases complete each other, we can assume they have similar meanings.
Therefore, we can safely conclude the speaker is saying that he is not an anxious weakling, not a coward. The best answer in this case is option C.
Learn more about context clues here:
brainly.com/question/24750804