WILTING A ROSE

There's a whole craft that goes into wilting a rose. There's an entire league of rules and procedures that guide the browning, the drooping, the hardening. Without this order, a rose might go on flowering well past its expiration date. The petals could remain red far beyond the point that they'd all bent to the thumbs of passersby and been sucked dry by bee and hopeful nose alike. Maybe we'd all own giant vases full of ancient roses. Instead, they die, and the floor of my apartment becomes crunchy when the breeze pulls forgotten petals from their stiff stems and lands them in my foot's path.