I Trim Stems from the Wal-Mart Bouquet

by Lauren Davis

while Grandmother watches over my shoulder.
These will, of course, be the last flowers

I give her. I’ll get on the plane tomorrow
and fly to my far corner. Her hands are not

the hands I remember. They tremble.
Their skin is as delicate as petals.

I had to drive miles away to find
a spring bouquet, $19.99. In the car

I thought, This is time I could be
sitting next to her while she sleeps.

Each stem is laid out on
the kitchen counter, waiting

to be arranged in the glass vase.
Grandmother watches over.

***

Lauren Davis is the author of The Nothing (YesYes Books), Home Beneath the Church, and When I Drowned. Her writing has been finalists for the Ruth Stone Poetry Prize and the Press 53 Award for Short Fiction, among others. She holds an MFA from the Bennington College Writing Seminars.