She sits

Petals litter the desk around the vase, and the tea roses droop on their long stems, dying, dying, dying and alone.

When she returns, she will sweep them up & throw them out (where they will decompose in the composte pile, in the company of all kinds of peasant vegetable matter).

She will lean over the desk, head down so the clock is out of sight, and cast her eyes demurely on all the unwritten letters there. Yet as the minutes go by, she will wilt and sink and fade in her young glory. She will question and grow silent as she sits, for she is waiting, she is dying, dying, dying and alone.

(and she envies those twelve roses, their beauty turned to loam, their death and their repose. she too longs to be immured in the earth, to be part of something common, even if the company of the dead)