Late Flowers
 By Christopher Bernard

 Only now have they started to fade.
 They had just begun to open
 the afternoon I bought them
 right before your birthday:
 white lilies, red carnations,
 clematis that clings to the eaves,
 small pink roses,
 little daisies,
 against a deep green backdrop 
 of shadowy ferns and leaves.
  
 Over the days that followed
 they blossomed like a flourish
 from a garden on your little table
 in your lovely room
 bright and warm and gentle,
 the windows opening to the bay
 and the northern reach of sunlight
 gathering the day.
 
 They opened like young loving,
 they opened like the spring,
 they opened like your smile
 at the sweetness of all beauty:
 a simple and artless bouquet.
  
 Only now do they begin
 to fade. Who could have known
 they opened only for one
 who would no longer see them,
 in a room where you, in sleep,
 the afternoon that followed
 the day that you were born
 (or so it seems, to the living),
 fading long before the flowers,
 were gone even as they flowered
 beautiful as the day?
  
 For K.
   

Christopher Bernard’s latest book of poems, The Socialist’s Garden of Verses, has received a stellar review from Kirkus and will be included as a May feature (Best Indie Books of the Month).