First Edit: The Last Flower

[Achebe]

The Last Flower

Later,
she will remember the flowers
he brought home,
and how he smelled of sweat and metal
after his back-shift.
She'll smell the bacon grease
from the breakfast she made him that day
then repeat her side of the conversation
to a barren wall.

Right now,
she tells everyone about her family
and Whitney Pier.
Some of the nurses listen
while others become like dead friends,
their eyes blind and ears deaf.
“My son should be here
soon,” she says.

Tomorrow,
she’s a girl again,
watching dandelions outside her room
turn into puffs of smoke,
escaping stacks from the steel plant.
She tries to tell someone,
but her voice sounds
old and dying.
Her confusion like a wave
smashing Dominion Beach.

“Where is my husband?”
she asks.
“Dead.”
She knows that word,
but thinks of the dandelions.

Some changes suggested above in the edited verison- some of the lines in the original are a bit clunky, have tried to make them easier to read.

I don't quite get the 'Later' that the poem starts with, since the action in the poem moves across more than one day.
Anyhow, I think it's much more powerful to end the poem on that enigmatic line about dandelions you have there, channelising Hemingway.
The bits afterward appear overdone to me.
Best