Pressed

I paste pressed flowers
to the notes I write myself about grief,
sweetness, and the things that make me laugh.

Layered in the dark, the flowers dry
between cardboard and blotting paper—
children in bunk beds telling their secrets.

Now the dehydrated flowers are translucent, fragile,
faded, nearly air.

And I am tired again,
the result of moving deliberately through this delicate world,
knowing how easy it is to cause a tear.

Elizabeth Graves received her BA in Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her MFA in Poetry from Eastern Washington University. Her work appeared or is forthcoming in the I-70 Review and Out There Outdoors Magazine. She grew up in rural Colorado and currently lives in Spokane, Washington.