Dandelions

    “Peter...are you still here?”
    “Yes, love, still here. Just facing the sun a bit.”
    Peter’s frond shuddered as though from the wind until it just touched the

stem of the dandelion next to him.
    “Peter, will it hurt, do you think?”
    “I don’t think so. We’ve never heard anyone cry out now, have we?” I think it’s just passing from one phase to another, like going from light to dark.”
    “I watched it happen to Anna last dark. It was fast. In the last light, she was

golden and bright and following the sun. The next light her head was covered

in stems and puffs.”
    “She was pretty then.”
    “She didn’t speak anymore.”
    Peter adjusted his face to the sun. His frond slipped from Margie’s stem.
    
 ‘She had a good life, Margie. Long hot lights, cool darks to close our eyes.”
    Margie cried out. “I’m turning your way.”
    “I’m glad. I wanted to see you one more time. I think I’m going to move soon. I feel a change.  
     “I don’t want you to go before me. I don't want to be alone.”
    “There is beauty in change, Margie. You watch me. I’ll be full of stems and

puffs, then the wind will carry my puffs through itself until the parts of me

spread and fall.”
    Margie’s head drooped. Peter heard her sigh.
    “Don’t be sad, love. We’ve had warm light and cool dark together. We will

spread beyond this grass into many other grasses. We will be bright and golden again. I promise.”  
     “But we won’t be together.”
 
    “Maybe not the same, but always together. A thousand Margies. A thousand

Peters. We will be together in other places, in other times, but always near.”
    
    He could hear Margie snuffle.
 
   “Peter. You have puffs. I watched them change.”
  
 “I knew it. I knew this light would bring it.”
    His puffs danced in the wind. He laughed. “I can feel it! You will, too. Like an itch, then a tickle.”
    In the length of the light, Margie watched his golden face transform into

stems and puffs. He stopped speaking. He stopped following the sun. But he was beautiful in a new way. His puffs were light and airy. They bent with the wind’s ways, then stood strong again. When the light came, the stem of the puffs stood against the wind.
    “Maybe you won’t let go, Peter. Maybe we can stay together even if you can’t talk. Maybe our puffs will drop here where we can stay together...”
    Then, the wind blew hard at Peter, hard as though it meant to loosen the puffs. Margie bent with the wind yearning to follow Peter, but he was gone into drifting stems and puffs caught up inside the wind.
    “Goodbye, Peter! I will look for--”
    Margie stood again, surprised, her words cut short.
    “Oh!” She shook. “That tickles!” 
And then she laughed.