Flowers from a New Love after the Divorce

Cut back the stems an inch to keep in bloom. So instructs the florist’s note enclosed inside the flowers. Who knew what was cut could heal again, the green wounds close, stitching themselves together? It doesn’t matter. The flowers, red and white, will bloom awhile, then wither. You sit in an unlit room and watch the vase throw crystal shadows through the dark. The flowers’ colors are so lovely they’re painful. In a week, you’ll have to throw them out. It’s only hope that makes you take out scissors, separate each bloom and cut where you last measured. Did you know Venus was said to turn into a virgin each time she bathed? She did it as a mark of love. She did it so as to please her lovers. Perhaps, overwhelmed by pain, she eventually stopped bathing altogether. It doesn’t matter. It’s a pleasure to feel the green nubs stripped, watch the stems refresh under your blade. They’re here because they’re beautiful. They glow inside your crystal vase. And yet the flowers by themselves are nothing: only a refraction of color that, in a week or two, will be thrown out. Day by day, the water lowers. The red- and-white heads droop, blacken at the stems. It doesn’t matter. Even cut stems heal. But what is the point of pain if it heals? Some things should last forever, instructs the florist’s note.Pleasure, says one god.Shame, says another. Venus heads, they call these flowers. In a week or two, you’ll lose the note, have to call the florist up. With sympathy, you’ll think he says. Perhaps:With love. It doesn’t matter. You’ve stopped bathing. Alone, you sit before the crystal vase refracting you in pieces through the dark. You watch the pale skin bloom inside it, wither. You petal, inch by inch. You turn red and white together.