You ask me to tell you of the roses in my garden
Instead of colors or the sunlight
I ask you to close your eyes so I can whisper
Of the heady scent that lines my driveway
The crunch of gravel the only sound
As petals brush across bare shoulders
You ask me to tell you of the roses in my garden;
They’ve overgrown like a runaway dream.
The Enchantress
gave the Beast
the painting of a rose
which would never shed
a single petal
She said,
“Love does not keep
a schedule
nor does it hurry.”
In a vase from a paramour,
freshly cut and placed in nutrient water,
a woman admires her roses.
Outside the window,
her ignored magnolia tree
blooms for yet another spring.
Red lips speak seduction,
Caresses soft as eider.
Hither comes your victim —
Willing as the last.
These thorny roses cannot be plucked
But tended to and left to bloom
By chance or by care
Some more wild than others.
RED GLADIOLA 