inflorescence

Issue 16

the rhododendrons didn’t bloom
that spring and I couldn’t sleep for fear
that I had missed the scraggly bush’s
final display of glory a year ago;
petals squandered on oblivious eyes--
that while I was paying bills
and buying light bulbs
and tapping computer keys--
the final flowers had fallen
and I never said goodbye:
 
I never said goodbye,
unless you count the glib
“see you next week”
at the end of a video call
days before his brain synapses
fired their unexpected conclusion
and I nearly grasped that my
water- and protein-based frame
was a fleeting fixture in the cosmos
and the hydrangeas could flower
with one less biped to see them;
 
and now mortality claws desperately
at moments drenched in substance,
sobbing to soak in the saturated shades
of opulent sunshine
and solicitous hugs;
inhaling the blackbird’s call
and gorging on the tentative breeze
that caresses weigela;
loath to relinquish the inexplicable
endowment of breath and blood
that trickles relentlessly away
into the unperceived

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Sharisa Aidukaitis is a writer and college educator in upstate New York. Her poems have appeared in numerous print and online journals, including Penstricken, Moss Piglet, The Quarter(ly), Drifting Sands Haibun, Sublimation, and others.

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