On Mother's Day Eve, I cut my first rose

a poem

On Mother’s Day Eve, I cut my first rose.
Bleeding pink, not quite open, petals still tall and ripe,
just for me. A secret gift.
Sentimental, perhaps. I’m a sentimental woman.
Inside, I looked for a jar or vase, something to
keep it safe and whole, a bright bruise of color
on the scuffed-up table.
But my toddler grabbed it.
Small pudgy fingers snatched, a chocolate-
smeared nose bent close, wrinkled in impossible
baby lines. He sniffed long and deep.
He doesn’t know how an ornamental rose
should smell, what his senses should be
searching for. He only knows what he
has watched me do. Over and over again. Day
after day.

Clutched in a two-year-old hand, the rose
cantered through the house, watching far more
of the snug chaos of bedtime
than it would have ever seen from a shrine on the table.
In minutes, the warm pink had weakened, petals
drooped and sagged. The stem broke.
It was no longer mine, but when I stooped
and lifted it, gently, from underfoot,
it felt like something familiar.
But I couldn’t stop to ponder, had to lay
it down to finish withering,
and start running the bath.