Survival
By Carolyn M. Crane
Go pick flowers, you tell yourself.
Wild red campion and white yarrow
are blooming late this year. Go pick them
in the afternoon of one man’s leaving.
There is, after all, silence left.
Red campion against yarrow’s lace
forms its own voice. Go pick them
--even though it’s hot outside.
Put them in the largest vase you have,
in the center of the table where he just ate
two plates of what your heart cooked.
They will flourish there without water,
drink the scent left on Grandma’s
china you meant to rinse clean
before he danced you off to bed.
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