flowers on her birthday

Flowers on her birthday

Silly sullen face of worry

Her detest and slow descent

Marriage to her self destruction

No hand of hers

Withered and pale 

Could accept

Anything but flowers

On her birthday

Her sheets wreaking of tomorrow

For each day lay to rest

In the same cold corner

A repetition of her reputation

Cyclical and cynical she wept

Over the pillows

That lay familiar

In a position never changed

The lights

Seemed to dim

Every hour

And she feared

The silver 

The sheen of age

Would reach her shoulders

Just in time

For flowers on her birthday.