The Garden at Twilight

The roses bloom in bruises, plum and red,

Their petals soft as secrets never told.

Beneath the earth the roots wind through the dead,

Drawing up sweetness from the winter’s cold.

You kiss me in the half light of the yard,

Where fireflies ignite and disappear.

Your touch is tender sanctuary, hard

Reminder that all brightness ends in mere.

I love you in this fragile, fleeting hour,

When day won’t choose and night will not arrive.

When beauty shows its teeth behind the flower,

We are both most alive and not alive.

The garden knows the lesson we are learning,

That love is always returning and still burning.