Deciduous Bouquet

Deciduous Bouquet

Not a petal,
not thirty petals,
a leaf, and a stem,
damp at the end
where it was
severed,

not the shrub
that housed
the flower,

not the unflowered
shadowshrub
that grows down
under it in the dirt,

not a bedful of petals
and mud and twigs,

not the clods
of soil my shoes
kept,

not a green wad
of floral tape,

not a vase,

not scissors or shears
or a knife,

only the knowledge
that, standing before
the hydrangea,
I think of you.