What I wrote (late) for last week's writing prompt

So…you know the writing prompt thingys that are sent out every week? Well, somehow the ones that spark my imagination happen on weeks I have no time to write. But anyway, I wrote something for last week’s and it…turned out differently than I expected. But what do y’all think? Specifically, I’m curious about the little rhyming thing that happened here. Do you think it works? Should I rearrange the middle to be more like a poem format?

Thanks!

—

He holds for dear life to the petals of hope in his hands, and remembers. It’s silly, he knows, but it seems the fragile flower connects him to the past, in this place.

His dirt-stained thumb traces a path round each petal.

The first one: The star, pinned to his vest. The day it all changed. The beginning of the rest.

The second: His store, the day that it closed. The front boarded up, door locked, his place desposed. The sign plastered across the front windows, that said: Closed, confiscated from a Jew who should be dead.

The third petal on the other side: The day he and his family began to hide.

The fourth: Discovered, taken here, to this ground. The day the horn began to sound. As row upon row lined up to be counted, scores were taken, up the steps they mounted. To the gas chambers were they lead, never to return, instead to join the dead.

The fifth: Chosen from the somber crowd—his family ripped away, marched down. All sense of hope lost as they were bound. Tears that fell, for the horrible sound.

The sixth: The Allied victory. The day they set the prisoners free—the day that made history.

He rubs his thumb across the velvety surface of the flower once more, then raises the hand holding it to his heart, dropping his head for a moment of silent remembrance. Then he lifts the pink petals to his lips and blows, releasing them—and the memories with—to the wind.