I plucked the flower.
Stripped it of its beauty,
Of its long bleached locks
The flower was dying;
Its petals began to plunge to the grassy earth beneath it
A flower looses its petals when it dies you know,
And really only sometimes when it is getting better
No matter what the bigger flowers decide to tell you
So I shaved them from the center,
Took away the pain of watching them tumble off
Two by two
Chunk by chunk
I handed the stumpy yellow center of the flower to the red bird in the high tree
“A flower is still a flower when it has no petals,”
I listen intently
“I think this one is especially beautiful”
I straighten my bandana and smile