Refreshing the Chrysanthemums

The vase breathes dank tannins, mold puff
clung between stems like hillside fog
among treetops and rotted logs.
I fold dead flowers in half, rough
fibers splitting, flicks from the tufts
of slimy root hairs on my wrist
when they’re binned. Their water feels thick,
imbued with life sprung from collapse.
Until now, I didn’t keep plants
without roots knotted to soil, pick

flowers that didn’t become fruits,
as if all life worth keeping had
to have exquisite taste—expand
with goat cheese piped into fried blooms—
live by my clock, desires, made to
steep this many minutes, grow wide,
thicker, taller. Fresh cut beside
the vase, scissors squeeze stems, push them
along dull blades. They slide, waxen,
away like scared animals, hide

in the old manner of thinking
that holds on as long as it can
skate on cold metal. Arranged and
placed in the living room, morning
magnifies, glows through water, slings
a glass quiver of green arrows
over its warm shoulder. I flow
with change, new water, throw away
rotting columns of the bouquet,
bunch doll heads, hydras, a rondeau

of organic purpose expressed
as anemone’s bursting slate
bloom, fall’s honey arriving late
in this year’s spoons. Petals reflexed,
an aqua burst of Saint-Tropez
tests our winter. Snowcapped with white
hair, refreshing vase flowers, I’ll
be Mount Shasta gleaming as the
sun floats low in its gondola—
small vessel that rounds the pulley
of its apex, returns to me.