From my collection Earth Lessons, because the roses are getting ready to pop.
ROSA MAJALIS
Leaflets long, pubescent. Flowers deep pink in a corymb. Hips large and bottle-shaped.-- Rose catalog.
With five slim petals
she satisfies her procreative need,
enticing flying feet and wings to collude
in a rage to be perpetual.
Behind her sepals’ five-fingered fan
she awaits the sun’s caress. Sly señora,
she knows how to meet a warm hand.
Her private core is deeply gold,
pollinated with the musk of want
becoming tall. Each lingam of light
waggles its cache of pollen in the breeze.
Her stamens climb the sky
but her roots descend
eternity’s steep stair.
Such fragile music
wafts from a gorgeous maw,
yet it excites in us raw
and lovely hunger.
