So I thought I would write a poem
about the peonies in my bedroom,
like lion's faces, their pink manes flowing, their ferocious grins.
And how they are a new flower for me,
because it doesn't snow here, and they need frozen ground to bloom.
They aren't supposed to be in my bedroom. They're foreigners.

They've been opening, opening.
At first just smelling green,
and I barely noticed it as I woke, or dressed, or pet the cats.
But as they lasted, they became stronger in beauty, and in their
dying. I kept them too long, because I could smell
the center of them, fully exposed, they've given themselves completely.
I could also smell their death, but this didn't bother me.

Until one morning, while I was sitting very still,
I heard a quiet, weighty thud.
A petal dropped
without force of wind, or touch.
And I thought, I had never heard a flower dying before.

You couldn't predict the moment of their falling, one by one, like a slow random rain.
It wasn't long before I couldn't bear it any more, the suddenness of a sound
from where sound shouldn't be. I scooped up the curling petals so many in my hands,
and still velvety, and threw them into the trash, and that was it.