Paper Blooms

Nana, I remember bundles of dried roses
heads fallen and clinging to sticks
and how you’d hold them in your teeth
silver strands caught in paper blooms
as you climbed the stepladder
to hang roses next to copper pots.

Nana, they took the flowers down weeks ago.

But I still smell their fragrance
drifting ghost-like through corner-marked pages
of cookbooks, clinging desperately to unraveled dishtowels
wanting so much to be remembered.

So, Nana, I found them. I gathered your roses up
in a basket and brought them home.