Red Tulips
Go to your neighbor’s flower garden.
Snap off eight tulip stems at their base.
She will not scold you this one time.
Arrange them in a blue glass vase.
Let their earthy smell fill the sickroom
where your mother lies in her antique bed
with its brass finials and pale blue sheets,
her rheumy eyes taking in
the constancy of stamens.
Tell yourself this is not an extravagance.
Remember to change the water, keep it full.
Be as reliable as the IV drip into her veins.
When the stems begin to arc, limp
and hunchbacked, before any petals
fall, remove the tulips from the room
while your mother is still sleeping.
Whatever you do, don’t let her see them die.
MARGARET CHULA is the author of fourteen books of poetry, most recently Firefly Lanterns: Twelve Years in Kyoto. Read more.