After The Memorial
…after the painting by Guilda Dimi
by MFrostDelaney

My fingers tip toe through the flowers sent,
pick out the roses one by one and lay
them down among the borrowed dishes lent
by her best friend who came but couldn’t stay.

Roses were her favorite, on a note
that’s scrawled in shaky script, so brief, bereft,
my daughter’s long-past-lover who she’d quote,
who didn’t come, but never really left.

Relationships were there-then-gone for her,
like flowers’ sweetest scent when they first bloom,
becoming memories of what they were
when all that’s left is passing through the room.

Before they die, I’ll dry two buds to keep,
a red and white, and put them in a cup
that I can sit with when I need to weep,
until my grief has waned, perhaps used up.

But looking now at this undone bouquet,
I can’t foresee I’ll come to know that day.



 

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