dahlias

three heads, packed as tight as drum-skins, the colour of brick and dried blood at once. up close the petals are layered like the pages of a small heavy book that has been left out in the rain and then carried in.

the crock is the kind you brine cabbages in. it is older than the building it stands in. the indigo "8" stamped on its belly belongs to a kiln no one remembers. it stands on the pantry shelf between the spice jars and a jar of cloudy preserves the keeper means to throw out and never does. the gardener cut the dahlias before the frost could.

they will last ten days. they go duller, not paler, and the last to fall will be the largest.

field-note — a dahlia carries its weight. the stem will bow within an hour of cutting unless you split the cut with a pin. the gardener splits each one with the same pin and has done so for thirty years.

see also: chrysanthemums · red anemones · from the garden · the garden