Five Flowers and a Funeral

Like bullet holes in a starched white shirt, they prop the gravestone in the dirt, a ruby stitch across the face of veined pale marble carapace. They held my gaze that winter day, beneath black clouds with streaks of grey, the wind howled for the distant dead, ice crystals bit the greatcoat thread. Stiff cards bore words upon each stem, five mourners and the names of them, each severed bloom, blood red and still, clashed colours with the graveyard chill. Five flowers and a funeral done, alone stand I the wayward son, and no one cares that I'm alive, imagining six instead of five.