"Black Roses."
None, only burgundy or violet seen.
You never imagine fields burning with larvicide.
Black magic.
Lavaglut.
Ruby celebration.
Holy Grail of botany furled like ironwork.
Not even carnations split along their stems
to drink the florist dye approach the order of the rose.
Some say petals scorch easily, the symbol
turned vampiric, floribundas staked from Syria
to parlors of the art nouveau.
Always a rose entwined with rose,
given an ardor or vengeance, kiss of death,
blood of martyrs, novel, noir, Baccara, Barkarole.
Black rose dried in vellum, black
rose frosted in nitrogen, black rose tattooed.
Genus prized for being almost true.
Essence of dream.
Apothecary.
How I loved you whittling thorns, loved you not.
In the lizard dark, no fire in the orchid.
No moonlight.
Nothing but a blue hoop turned along the horizon, the street
a white pastoral framed in the afterimage.
Everything remains, decanters pouring, no wine.
The wedding mantled in blue, the grim pandemic
painted in poison cosmetics.
If I think of music, it's not the snow blown
through the artist's skull, nor bergamot crushed in its mortar,
not the slap of Double Dutch, children's marble games,
nights the mariners return, hands
carved against the carapace.
It is the Flemish harbor mantled around us, panic,
blood rise, village of blue.