Post-Op Blooms

By Grace Marsh

Cut flowers still want 

for water. They are torn from their roots, left in their deaths 

to stand, to droop. They stay, thirsty and desperate,

propped up in mugs when no vases can be found — and still they want

for the thing which cannot save them, the thing which leaves

them wanting, always wanting,

never healed, never whole.

Cut flowers would rather die drowning than parched, 

with stems swimming in unmiracle cures, their beauty preserved 

and lonely in a photo dump carousel. They fade as they want,

dry and tender, with human hands holding

their husks, feet paused over pedal bins —

even now, their thirst makes itself heard

in the soft-petal-crinkle and brittle snap of leaf.

Cut flowers still want

for water. We indulge them, or forget

to. They fade, furl, fall 

regardless.

By Grace Marsh