Eleven decaying roses hung their heavy heads in shame on my dinner table,

Smothering each other for air, 

stems trying to soak up every last bit of the turbid water left.

Their stems struggling to bear the weight of their petals--

Knowing, seeing, wishing they hadn’t

Their faces--wrinkled and dried out with age--

On the verge of crumbling into dust or breaking apart with a touch.

But

maybe,

Into the compost they go,

In with the rotten red cabbage, fall’s old pumpkins, bruised apples, lunchtime orange peels. 

In with the forgotten, the lost, the old;

The squishy, the battered the bruised. 

How will they fare?

I wish I knew, 

I leave them be,

Tossed into the compost, the bouquet a bride throws on her wedding day,

Joyfully, but not with the intention to remember them later. 

I come back to my dying  roses months later

It’s springtime now, the daisies have taken over.

I stir my compost,

Earthen, brown, beautiful,

And catch a glimpse of a single petal.