Caught on my rake: a petal,
now dry as autumn air.
I lift it from the tines. My touchwon’t reignite its flare:
maroon has given way
to brown, yellow to ash.
As though to honor what has fallen,I spare it from the trash,
slide it into my pocket
beside some pencil lead
that’s broken loose, a filamentof scarlet sewing thread—
all things that once possessed
or could have summoned beauty.
Hardly mementos, these, and stillI feel I have a duty
to what I’ve saved. A mug
or drawer shall be their tomb,
a sigh their eulogy. If onlysuch thoughts might heal the bloom.
