In A Vase

In a vase on a hill, on a piano near a dark, wooden sill, is a vase.

Inside the vase is mucky green water, molded stems rotting to the core, tainted with a sickly sweet scent.

Petals that melt from the bulb, the moldy rotten bulbs; they look like slime in the moonlight.

The wind doesn’t blow on the flowers, for the windows are never open.

The drapes are not swept to the side, for they are broken.

The stems do not collect the water they need, for they are sick.

The petals do not bloom each day, for they do not see a day in which to bloom.

Then there’s the sound.

A quiet one like the soft whisper of the ocean,

Though no ocean the flowers have seen.

Death flies by, and there is no breeze.

And the flowers do not shiver, they are still.

As still as a corpse lying in its rest.

As cold as the bloodless form, a cadaver.

Hard as a stiff joint from inactive slumber.

They stand still and slowly rot, decay, shrivel.

Sadness draws upon the silent house,

And nobody moves,

And nobody cries.

They stand in groups but do not talk.

But the flowers still stand still,

Their aroma of death unnoticed.

The silent watchers disappear one by one,

And the flowers stay dead, side by side.

The petals descend, one by one.

And they lay in a heap, yet side by side.