A winter's one-sided brawl.

Though sun stops beating, my pulse does not. Air turned steam from my breath taunts Autumn mums that some of us will survive this season.

And some of us will not.

Bitter cold sears my soul and I should probably feel sorry for the dead family of once-golden petals,

but I don't.

I laugh remembering why I bought them, their color burst first to greet passerby, and last to bid farewell.

And now the freeze caught them squatting, forever stuck fat and happy except, well, it's peculiar really, their smiles must have thawed.

I only yank them from their misery because their rigor mortis corpses stare ugly. Shallow energy exerted masks my vanity with compassion. I simply don't want to look at them anymore.

But it's they who have the last laugh. They aren't the only ones dead frozen. Their roots stick solid to the once life-giving soil that now sits heavy in frigid clay pot.

And now the only ugly to greet passerby is my steaming and huffing and tugging, the crazy lady having a knock-down drag-out with some pathetic dead plants who refuse to leave their post.