Who Will Tend the Roses

'Twas stench of rotting roses roused

the spirit of disgruntled corpse:

flowers on another’s grave,

but none there were on his, of course.

Cadaver frowns in wooden box,

and wonders why no roses, he?

Nothing there but soil and dust,

“Perhaps I should get up and see

who tends my roses, now I’m gone—

yellow petals, pink or red,

some white as snow, yet tipped in blood—

who tends and trims my flower bed?

A garden back of house I owned,

‘fore illness stole me ‘way from there

and auctioned off my memories.

What’s happened to my flowers, fair?”

Specters do not rise and float

insubstantial from the grave;

they wrestle out of body prone,

they bite and chew and claw and rave.

The toenails rip the lining back,

phantom fingers clack and scrape,

until they pierce corporal veil,

making good the soul’s escape.

The phantom trudged down stony paths,

across the creek and up the hill,

to find beloved garden patch

and see if it was tended still.

Now passing through the iron gate,

then ‘round the back and through the lawn,

his glassy eyes at last beheld

abandoned garden, kissed by dawn.

He bent to touch the bud and stem

and catch the scent of blossom’s head,

but at his touch it shriveled back,

and by his breath it withered, dead.

Now when October comes to call

and moonlight filters through the tries,

you’ll catch a glimmer of the ghost,

still sad and weeping, on his knees.

-Penumbra Online