Cockscomb (noun):  a garden plant (Celosia cristata) of the amaranth family grown for its flowers.

Sandra Cisneros, Woman Hollering Creek: “…so that they all had to be supported with brown handles and old boards; red red cockscombs, fringed and bleeding a thick menstrual color…Dolores clipped the most beautiful of these flowers and arranged them on three modest headstones…”

This flower symbolizes the loss that Dolores has gone through from the death of her sons and husband. Each week she cuts the flowers to place on the headstones, which shows that she is still mourning, or “bleeding’ from the emotional wounds she has.

-”Cockscomb.” Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster. Web. 20 May 2014.

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