She is a flower that nobody wanted,
receiving more in her days of death
than the ten thousand in which she lived
hidden beneath the world’s most beautiful weeds.
We try, we do, to see the sun rise, the azaleas yawning against the new day, the waters gathering like cocaleros hovering over the valley’s rim, but eventually and always our eyes turn to the dry, cracked ground, and the deep pink succulents crawling from underneath the devouring centipedegrass.
Why did it take this woman’s death to give her a moment’s fleeting voice, already more dissipated than last nights dreams?