A Rose Without Thorns

We stand in a row, our shoulders touching, and a pale rose clasped in each of our hands.

Father kisses her forehead the way the sun kisses a rose petal. She is cold beneath his lips, cracking and chipping away like an ice sculpture. Her lips are glossed in lilac, and her cheeks are blushed with pink; but she still looks like a corpse.

She is so very young when we put her in the ground. We plant our sister like a seed, and we wish with all our hearts that she will grow and bloom. She is our rose without thorns: precious as Mother’s favorite pearls, loyal as Father’s favorite hound, and innocent as our favorite canary.

The holy man blesses her soul and preaches eternal life, but our sapling sister does not hear him. We expect her to live on forever in the sky, so we bury her in the earth the way we were always taught in Sunday school.

Her name becomes a prayer on our tongues, murmured in the night when we feel so alone and without hope. She is always young when we look into our memories.