The Smell of Death
When the flowers begin to droop
they smell as bad as baby poop.
Once aromatic, now they’re not.
We train babies to use the pot.
      We smell death in rotting flowers
but baby learns to take showers.
We can inhale the smell of death
and flowers cannot hold their breath.
      Then the baby becomes an old man
and unable to reach the can
in time to flush his own poop down,
wearing Depends® and a night gown.
      The life of flowers may be brief
but old men smell, in death, relief.

Walt Abbott–10-31-08