Gone is the Rose

"The audacity, and by audacity I mean hubris, overweening pride!"
--Mr. Blackman, "Strangers with Candy"


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE
Rose in the garden that God forgot to step on.
Cigarettes burn out like stars in dawn’s grey filter.
The wind kicks outside and bickers with pigeons.
Your face crinkles with laughter like Chinese paper.
Words stumble, stub their toes, stutter falseness.
Each ghost, ever menstrual, alive, talks like you.
Howling lupine winter aids and abets redolence.
Weren’t our shadows lit by joy? There was a lady
In the mind who brought roses, sung tunes like you
Through reverie’s throat, dines now on grief’s heat.
Burn me till the brain melts in this bed of thorns,
And becomes an elixir you can easily swallow.
Morning slouches like a beaten child. Roses gone
Brown, dust thick on the portrait. Where you’ve gone
Only a sleeping beauty or bleeding Jesus knows.
Gone is the rose pinned to the bridal mane. Gone
Are you, the scalpel wriggling ever in memory’s ear.
The body is not a temple. You taught me that.
A girl grinds through gristle and rocks, raises
A bloody hand, smiles to me unwanted reprieve.
Sap sucked from a tree. I dust your books often.
The bathroom’s immaculate as you’ve wished.
Roses sprout thin from the scalp of the wasteland.
Cap’s on the toothpaste. Chicken soup’s done.
Two bowls, two spoons, my works, my faith.
On that rock in the middle of that sea of wherever
You are do you think of me as you dip a little toe
Into the absolute zero of memory? Rose has doubts,
Has trouble sleeping, dreams too dark too much,
Wakes too tired, post noon; in dust the petals drop.