Autumn flower,
You’re late.

Where have you been?
The party eras ago
The guests gone
The wine dried,
The music just a ghost.

And yet,
Here you are,
Stepping into the silence
In that blood-red gown,
Stealing the show from the last tired dancers.
Spinning.
Alive.

The few that remain,
Wilted and bent at the spine,
Turn to stare
How rare you are.
How few like you ever bloom
This far into the end.

They taste your blood
And become your fiends.
They will crave the ghost of your breath
Like one last breeze
Through your autumn trees.

But you
You fall in silence.
Your descent, delicate.
Almost holy.

And though I’m not like the few
Who only gaze and ache
I’m the one
Who tried to hold you
Then let you go.

Still, I wait
Just to witness
Your final descent beneath the soil.
To the table where water holds
The weight of the world.

Where your scent stains the stream,
And the petals float on, like sweet red dreams.