Houseplant Dirge

What they tell you will last won’t always

last as long as you need it. The hearts of the pothos

seemed to multiply on the mornings when you’d notice

them smooth in the sunrise, hardly a hint of the dust

resisting the water bottle spray. It’s as if

the Jade Plant and the African Violet have gone

to a plush or a plastic, to an emblem of what once lived

and thirsted and reached toward sunbeams, reached

for anything at all, and finally decided to stop.

Not that the spider plant would

ever end its eternal longing for touch, it’s long

fingers dying at the ends, their tips like burnt paper,

like what tried to survive the fire, what preserves enough

of what it was to keep you curious, to think, “Maybe

I can bring this back,” maybe you can, but won’t.