haibun || Sheila E. Murphy

Silk Irises
 
We still believe that they are real. Each flower renders individually rippled flaws she brought mid-fever on a visit when we had no word for what the diagnosis hid. She slept long, she stumbled toward the kitchen, speaking dosage, sharing what had happened inside sleep. One of the flowers, blue, hovers amid hushed purple hues. We dust them. People look for water in the vase. What is not true begins to seem thus. We carry things in ways that match their beautiful mistakes, cloth method act. She brought us moments, and she walked a ways, until the wine could lift her above feeling she would not describe. Our table, very white, showed vivid colors, gathered turnings of pale light approaching dusk.
 
Darkness to which one grows accustomed, as color starts to disappear