Yesterday you died and I bought lilies for you.
But wait, back up, this isn’t where it starts.
:
Last year I was in an airport and saw lilies
And fingers touching the petals and the stems
Like a lover
And I had never looked at lilies as lovely before.

No, this isn’t right, this is still not the beginning.
:
I think it began when I was just a kid and I saw
A smile for the first time
It wasn’t for anything serious,
I didn’t know what lilies were back then
I made daisy chains instead
I got ***** in sandboxes and didn’t understand
Romance films. Still don’t, but that’s by choice.

But no, let’s move forward, there is too much
To tell
:
There is a day in which you fry me bacon and eggs
There is a day in which I mix the colours and whites in the wash
And everything turns pink and we laugh
There is a day in which your car breaks down
And I drive you to work.

There are some hours we spend in front of the TV
There are some hours we spend walking in the park
There are some hours we argue and
There are some hours where we just smile as we read in silence, Together.

There is the time you buy me a ring
There is the time I buy two tickets to Morocco
There is the time in Morocco where we dance in a bazaar
There is the time I argue with your parents about refugee policy
There is the time we spend Christmas in a tent in Colorado
There is the time you tap my forehead
When I say something funny, when we’re drunk.

And then there is the time
I buy you lilies for no reason other than I saw someone
Touching them in an airport, and you cry
They’re your favourite you say and
Did you know, you say
They mean purity, in both Christianity and Buddhism?
That it was formed from the breast milk of Hera, or
In the case of the Easter Lily, the sweat of Christ? You say,
You should be a Tiger Lily –you’re belligerent enough, you say,
Lilies are ****** and lilies are pure and lilies are death
And these are Lilies of the Valley
For our second year of marriage.
:
I had no idea, but smiled anyway.

So now we can return to the end.
:
There is an accident
There is a hospital
There is waiting
There is laboured breathing
There are machines beeping
There are tears.

Then there is a funeral
And I can no longer give you lilies
Because you do not have hands I can touch
So I give them to a block of stone with
Your name on it, instead.

I adopt lilies as my favourite flower
So I can never forget.