Roses for Rembrance

Roses, home-grown, handpicked
slowly wilt in a crystal vase
pulled out for this solemn occasion.
He gave me that vase,
eons ago when we communicated,
loved each other passionately
and lived in similar universes.
The vase is placed on a side table
in a room I never enter -
except when visitors come.

He holds my hand tentatively,
more for his comfort than mine.
We speak in funeral voices,
hushed and trepid,
death shadows hiding in words
previously unspoken, unthought.
I see fresh scratches,
whether from rose picking
or self harm I can’t tell.
Minute drops of blood ooze out.

His ideology, his passion leaves me cold.
We speak of life and afterlife,
a hollow conversation that long ago,
would have held me in thrall.
Not any more. Not for a long time.

Gaps of silence grow longer
and finally I send him home.
A bewildered look on his face
shows this meeting was unexpected
in more ways than he could count,
it has tipped his world,
as it toppled mine
when he first said goodbye.

Evident hurt in his eyes
makes me want to hold him,
tell him it will be alright
mother him, smother him as I once did,
when he and I were enmeshed.

Instead I brush his cheek lightly
kiss him goodbye with tenderness
and turn to walk away.

A moment of pity causes me to see
that he doesn’t get phases of women
never understood faces of me.
Unspoken communication is lost on him.

He strives to resurrect that, which is dead,
while I watch petals fall from neglected roses,
remember forgotten scents of love
and hold tightly to my pocket full of yearning.