The azaleas bloom on your birthday

If you were coming by for dinner

I’d pick some and stick them in a Mason jar

An ersatz vase

Just filled 1/3 with water

Fuchsia pink on the wood table

Maybe a few surrounding green leaves

Something about the beauty, the simplicity

I haven’t seen you in a year and a half

But I think of you every day – more so when the azaleas bloom

Something about your spirit, your laugh, that looms

You were like an azalea bush along my driveway

But someone brought you inside

They plucked you away

Are you on a table, in a vase

Is the glass any more full now than it was

Is there still that brilliance in your face

Do people stop to admire you just because

Are you cared for

Are you adored

Because you should be

I stared at the azaleas today

And thought of you

My friend, my fellow woman, a beauty