See how the tasteful arrangements proclaim their permanence, dewless and untender as any furniture—yet very like: tulip, apple blossom, rose, lilies and delphinium, scentless and their careful petals dentless, something to be dusted and kept nice. My mother had a ball dress once, crimson silk poppies drowsy at the waist. Crushed and spoiled at last, they knew a kind of death, their artifice did not outlive her. So too the faded wedding wreath and Parma violet hat, unpretending ornaments that shared a part of her mortality— while these plastic beauties still will bloom while we decline, will meet our last…