The Flowers You Were

By Catherine Harnett

(written as a tribute to Epstein's survivors.)

You were a flower once, Lilac, Rose,

Honeysuckle; your petals were beautiful,

your intoxicating scents. You were meant

to bloom, hanging heavy on a bush, arranged

in a bouquet or vase, young flowers that

fade with dignity as flowers are meant to;

purple, peach, pink; enticing, turning a

fragile papery brown.

You were a flower once, plucked from a young

garden, promised a Swarovski vase in the

foyer, greeting all the guests: bankers, stars,

laureates for dinners, aperitifs in the salon.

You were there, but weren’t there, not as

the centerpiece; but as adornment in a man’s

lapel, tucked behind a woman’s ear;

an afterthought wilting on a marble floor,

on a yacht or in a spa, binned up

with remains of arousal.

There will be more beautiful bunches

to bloom and wilt, through perpetual

New York and Paris springs and island

storms, and maybe

the girl you were presses brown

petals between the pages of a diary kept

beneath a poisoned bed in a room

with cameras, begging to be read.

Catherine Harnett: As a neuro-divergent writer, my mind is never still. Words, politics, injustice etc, take up residence in my brain and inform my writing. For thirty-one years I worked for the federal government—Congress, the State Department and the Justice Department; after a time, the politics became corrosive and it was time to leave. Having time and privacy to write are gifts for which I’m grateful. My job is to pay  back as much as I’m able.