Portrait of the Bouquet as Portent

Who doesn’t like a stunning bouquet of fresh flowers? Their fleeting nature makes them seem more precious. But then there is the slow deterioration as the flowers shrivel and wilt. I feel disloyal, throwing them away too soon–and that line between too soon and soon enough is a fine line indeed. Then there are the practicalities. I’d prefer to put the flowers in the trash the night before garbage pickup, at the same time as we pick up all the trash from the rest of the house before taking the bin to the curb. Otherwise, I have several days of flowers decomposing in the bin inside the house or garage, which is worse than letting it happen as they sit in the vase.

And it’s just so sad, how quickly blooms go from being at their best to sagging and sorrowful. Which gets me thinking about how many things in life go that way. Which is ironic, since flowers are supposed to cheer us up.

Portrait of the Bouquet as Portent

Smell of green decomposing puts shame
to followers of shabby, imperfect chic.
That water shouldn’t be cloudy.
Bits that dropped weren’t meant to stay.

A little more swamp than swagger here,
if roses ever do swagger. I’ll pretend a little
longer I’m waiting for the right moment
to air this narrow space, pretend I don’t feel

disloyal discarding already the slowly
melting stems and leaves. Dead
display in white satin. Husks prettied up,
petal-soft and pleading for memory.

Glacial, the unbecoming.

Slant Sonnet

The form of this poem is not-quite-a-sonnet. A sort of slant sonnet, as it were. It moves from the idea that blooms were never meant to be this way, to a bit of denial of what is going on, to the idea that bouquets are just death prettied up to look like life. Unlike a sonnet which would have a closing couple, this poem only gets the one line for closing. Because, after all, the bouquet does the rest.

If you enjoyed Portrait of the Bouquet as Portent

You’ll find more of my poems on this blog or in the collection Stars Crawl Out From Their Caves, which is available in both ebook and print.  Missed a poem of the week? Links to prior weeks are on this page.  

We’re half-way through the year: this week is 2018’s 27th poem of the week. How is this weekly feature working for you?  Comments welcome, as always–have a great week, and look for another poem next Monday.