The Culture of the Rose

Flesh pinched and

picked over to a

slapping drum,

beet hollow,

hollows

roots hairy

capillaries.

Dirt weight mutes the echoes in the den.

Please,

put your ear to the ground-skin,

begging

wakeful, edgy and wanting,

warm and sticky

weeped and wailing.

Grub me,

incessant black spot,

nights repeated.

A

firm hand

spreads, snail like

in search of injured buds

along the entrails.

Light blooms through an unopened petal,

Blue Jewel

above the foam fringed

midsummer

in the form of mist

floating her now,

breath fogs,

rainbow tinted

almost sleeping

symptoms of black leaf

and ash remain.

I trimmed, tempered and tied

invasive vines

squeezing for marks to quell my edges.

Recurrent, red-shelled lullaby.

Look into the tender eyes of the deer

making holes

back to the world that was

that never was

The Culture of the Rose.

Punctured,

all but invisible to the naked eye

cutting neat and perfect circles;

Grubs, identified by the perfection of their work

in the pith of the rose cane

swarm

to the sea

pests

disease

malnutrition.

I lie here.

I rise here

maggot tunneled

pretty trimmings of a neglected food source

snipped into a pail and burned.

Infested,

leaving webby deposits.

These tiny pinkish thrips

only have eyes for

a girl who

does not attack flowers,

keeping them in small glass jars,

half lit.

To stop the splitting,

I wind a hand over the slapping drum

and wrap the rose pith

pistil

floretting nectar

climbing with the pulse

aligning,

apex

Contained, I am Green

wishing healthy roses would be

well worth while.