and the sun rose in the west today because it thought the world was dead.

but it is alive because I woke up this morning and breathed. 

and you know, I have always wondered

what is death to the mortician?

a wilted rose he bought yesterday for his lover

but the lover never saw the rose because she was too busy thinking about death.

he paints all day, 

red the blue lips

and when i asked him why he paints them red 

he laughed and the rose dropped a petal. 

if I could go back in time

i would give my lover a pencil instead of a pen 

so i could erase his mother’s name from her death certificate

but what is a death certificate to me

when my lover bought my roses at 3:00? 

and when the certificate that defines me has DIVORCE printed at the top

like the name of a city

but i cannot leave the city

because my feet are planted in the ground

so I can never visit DEATH. 

but that’s where my lover is 

and he has my roses

so they’ll wilt before I see them 

because he bought them after noon. 

and they say that love is like a ferris wheel because

it seems like you’re only ever at the top once

even if you’re at the top seven times

because the view never changes.

only maybe the people at the bottom change

so being at the top doesn’t really make a difference. 

does that make death the same way too? 

no, of course it doesn’t. 

does it?

the mortician has the answer but he can’t say because

he just painted his lips red and if he speaks

they’ll smudge. 

now his lover sees the roses

but she’ll never see roses the same again

because they’re dead too 

but the difference is that she can buy new roses.

or someone else can buy them maybe

but the ferris wheel surely won’t ever be the same.

and now that love is dead who will paint her lips?

they will have to be blue and people will think she’s ugly

but they won’t admit that they thought she was ugly when she was alive. 

she’s only pretty to the people 

that share her beauty

and her roses never died

but the mortician still did. 

and I can stare at my roses —

they’re alive, because I bought them — 

and call them daisies 

but that doesn’t make them daisies

and no matter how many times i tell my lover

that i am in love

that doesn’t make them daisies either. 

so when i closed the casket on her —

love — 

i could have sworn she smiled at me 

could have sworn she was holding daisies 

but maybe i just felt like swearing. 

and into the ground she went 

with her blue lips and 

everybody moved on.

except me. 

i put roses on her grave every day because

they always died before noon

but the ones on the mortician’s grave didn’t. 

and as she decayed she 

carried the sun down in the east on millions of feathers and 

it set and i climbed into bed 

frowning at my roses because

they lost all their petals and 

i think i forgot to breathe.