Flowers for Armageddon

the petals were yellow with a dusting of rusty red along the edge

the stalks were slender but sturdy and green leaves grew near their base

there were three flowers on the scarred and dry-rotting ledge

when he awoke they faced east towards the morning sun

by sunset they’d turned west in their terra cotta vase

but he was not patient enough to time their turning

patience was a skill that only lately he was learning

he promised himself to one day give the ledge a coat of paint

and make faint marks on the clean white surface

where the flowers shadows fell across the wood

and thus, from solstice to solstice, trace the seasons as they came and went

but the flowers, perennials, in winter drew back into their bulbs

the idea, though charming and distracting, was no good

still he knew when winter came by the passing of the flowers

and on sultry summer days their shadows tracked the hours

each day before sunrise he sprayed the flowers with rain water

collected in the barrels at the corners of his house

on pleasant days he set the flowers outside on the porch railing

they were his children, the three of them, two sons and a daughter

and unlike his first three children they had no legs to walk away

these stayed and their constancy calmed him without failing

until one spring the bulbs refused to break up from the ground

and the twenty-two he kept for varmints still held one round