He didn't have much to say
when you pulled the daffodils out
from the refrigerator where she
left them since "the funeral guys"
rejected them.
He pursed his lips only
as you pinched off the blossoms
between thumb and instructional finger
and lined them up like the heads of infidels
along the counter.
The stems, you threw away with
their leaves and hangers-on:
only roses leave corpses worth
keeping, and only because the thorns
survive deflowering.
Later, while you wept in my
jacket at the truck stop, wept into your
cocoa, he gathered the trophies
you took from the fridge and fed them
to the garbage disposal.