Rose
by Kathy Fagan
The roses are sick but bud anyway on defoliated stems.
They won’t last long.
Only every other button needs to know,
I mean no one does,
as I am alone
and neither hot nor cold
with no corporeal desire except to live in peace.
Murders everywhere.
And though they bloom with abandon this spring
the poppies are not a symbol because blood is not.
I am trying very hard not
to wish harm on those who profit from others’ losses
as if they held doctorates in money and still don’t know what blood costs.
The roses were planted with fish heads,
their eyes surprised by soil as it fell. I turned my eyes away
again and again. To classrooms, bedrooms, galleries, and bone rooms.
The inscription above the skeleton reads:
I was once what you are and what I am you will also be.
The dead are not a symbol. The roses are not
because our lives are not.
★ First published in ONLY POEMS ★