a winter bouquet

everything was cut at the end of summer and hung upside down in the airing cupboard. hydrangea, barley, three poppy heads, eucalyptus that has gone the colour of paper. it has been winter a long time.

the bouquet stands on the chest in the hall where the frost on the window can be seen behind it. no water; the stoneware was never meant to hold any. nothing about it asks for tending — see the kitchen fire, four a.m., the vigil.

some of the seed-heads have begun to come apart in their own time. the dust collects on the chest below. you do not sweep it.

field-note — the smell of the dried bunch is not the smell of the flowers. it is the smell of the cupboard the bunch lived in.

see also: a field bouquet · anonymous bouquet · wreathus · snow