Still, so still in your prison bed, saddled with weighted, watered coat.

Your shoulders, no longer subtle and seductive,

but rounded now, head prayerfully bowed.

Your once spiny shanks give way to your insanely colored demeanor

shared only here and now in these brief moments.

No one visits anymore to poke and probe and penetrate,

their sweeter fare to mix and merge for tea and sated palettes.

Patiently you abide the loneliness, forfeiting fellowship of other petaled sojourners-

now ghosts. Their spirits haunt Spring memories and taunt of Winter’s coming.

Your will wanes with the daylight hours;

your breaths are shorter, arms colder, with the grey horizon closing in.

Yet, alone you may be, but lonely you are not

for peeking out from rumpled soil where things long dead, or sleeping,

are others’ voices who pine for you to rise again, resplendent in former glory.

This you promise, but for now you shiver, brinking on edge of night

when sleep, finally, is yours and

you are reborn

once

more.