Roses make me sad
Roses make me sad
Mamaw brings in a vase of delicate, light pink ones
Opened so that
were they opened any more
They would not hold the power they hold now
The reminder of death impending
A day more
and they will reveal their pollenous middles
Yellow and brown
Death's arrival
One of the roses in the vase has already done so
It's petals a peach orange
a color that reminds me of Florida, not Kentucky
Foreign rose intruding
Intruding rose in corpse-state already
Mamaw brings in a vase of light pink roses (the orange one, besides)
I say, "How lovely!"
But really I want to cry
and pluck the roses out,
water dripping from their stems,
Hang them upside down from the ceiling
The color will yellow, but only slightly
The shape-- beautiful, folded
will remain
Frozen with my hopes of eternity
I always hung roses I recieved as a child
For some play or recital or birthday
this way
Finding fallen petals on the floor made me angry
And I collected even these in a box
"Homemade potpourri" I said,
but eventually I opened the lid to find these had molded
after I, like a fool, added pieces of still-wet orange peel
The roses persisted in their dying
All things persist this way
Despite my clawing efforts
I cried as I thew the ruined petals in the bathroom wastebasket
Mamaw brings in a vase of delicate roses
Mamaw, whose face dries, wrinkles yearly
Like the roses that hung in my childhood bedroom
Mamaw, seventy-six year old gardener
How much longer will you garden?
How longer tend these roses
Your roses whose perfume I inhale at your insisting
Your roses that, in their living, smell only of death?
Mamaw brings in a vase of delicate, light pink ones
Opened so that
were they opened any more
They would not hold the power they hold now
The reminder of death impending
A day more
and they will reveal their pollenous middles
Yellow and brown
Death's arrival
One of the roses in the vase has already done so
It's petals a peach orange
a color that reminds me of Florida, not Kentucky
Foreign rose intruding
Intruding rose in corpse-state already
Mamaw brings in a vase of light pink roses (the orange one, besides)
I say, "How lovely!"
But really I want to cry
and pluck the roses out,
water dripping from their stems,
Hang them upside down from the ceiling
The color will yellow, but only slightly
The shape-- beautiful, folded
will remain
Frozen with my hopes of eternity
I always hung roses I recieved as a child
For some play or recital or birthday
this way
Finding fallen petals on the floor made me angry
And I collected even these in a box
"Homemade potpourri" I said,
but eventually I opened the lid to find these had molded
after I, like a fool, added pieces of still-wet orange peel
The roses persisted in their dying
All things persist this way
Despite my clawing efforts
I cried as I thew the ruined petals in the bathroom wastebasket
Mamaw brings in a vase of delicate roses
Mamaw, whose face dries, wrinkles yearly
Like the roses that hung in my childhood bedroom
Mamaw, seventy-six year old gardener
How much longer will you garden?
How longer tend these roses
Your roses whose perfume I inhale at your insisting
Your roses that, in their living, smell only of death?