The Last Rose
Ichor running through her veins
All blood is pushed aside
Her eyelids shut, her heart on ice
My fate she would decide
Wilted romance, rotting vines
Garden left in thorns
A lonely rose from last years bloom
Bent over in her scorn
New seeds unplanted, sterile lay
Her cold impounds the soil
To blow within a fallow lust
Abandoned there to toil
With one more look, beyond all hope
My vision love impaired
Her verdict guilty, poison laid
—in blindness I despair
(Longwood Gardens: February, 2022)
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