Unearned Softness

It sits there by the window,

dirty glass.

Dust motes on the sill, a small death.

I haven't thought of water

for weeks, maybe a month.

Its skin, a ridged green, almost gray

from neglect.

And yet, this morning, there it was:

a single bloom, precise and pink,

no bigger than my thumbnail.

It feels like an apology

I don't deserve.

Or a secret only found

in quiet forgetting.

Such softness, rising

from something so hard, so sharp.