letter number two.

It's always carnation season.

In the store, we push quite the amounts of them across the counter, they're in sale from January through December, all year long, people call them funeral flowers and in Naples, death is a daily affair. A special kind of marketing must be said to exist with carnations, see, we stock up in bucketfuls, in all colors, I prefer the orange ones, something you might have guessed beforehand and most afternoons, it's also those that are left, orange carnations fit only a few coffins, decorate only a rare grave. People want blood-red petals that burst of heartbeat, they want bouquets in the purest of whites and the deepest of purples, they don't want flowers that give off sunshine and late summer sensations, that glow while the families mourn their loss which I understand, but I willingly take all the sunshine and the faded emotions with me home anyway. I put orange carnations in vases as black as grief for the sake of contrast and I put them on display on my windowsill, so the sunset and the glowing autumn leaves will recognize my house; here lives someone who has once lost.

I recall the carnations that we picked in your grandmother's garden, Chiara, she had a whole bed full and we each chose our favorites, mine changed colors in time with your blouses, first they were white, then pink, then red as if coordinated in accordance with a painter's scale, yours were always the same shade of orange, why do you think it's the orange carnations I put aside now? Those I treasure, treasure.

We exchanged bouquets, ceremonially and as such, you became my significant other.