After Magritte’s The Tomb of the Wrestlers
Eyes in the roses you sent me, eyes in the roses you didn’t send.
We are in the moment before the breath or after the breath, but not
The breath. // These flowers wink and breathe;
Their plush mouths touch everything unsaid, vowels roll
Round their mouths, fringed petals surround the pupil
That speaks for us: what is white, what is yellow,
What is red. // Our love said and unsaid: rose petals floating in a bath
Of herbs and holy water to wash off the year, fistfuls of gardenias torn
Off a shrub and flung onto the sidewalk, daisies tossed
Midair gathering on a carpet and trampled underfoot, plumeria
Threaded into a necklace or crown, the tendril’s unfurling green,
And, other days, tulip buds wilting in a vase. // Years, all we planted pushed
Against soil and rose up. Was gathered, bound, wired and tied
With a ribbon, wrestled into a vessel. We tried our best. // Each day
The sun arcs across the sky, colors fade, smells wane, wrinkled
And brown, edges crimp, blooms limp, and shatter in one breath. // Now,
The flowers’ eyes are unblinking, a silence we wade into. Can we linger
Here, waist-deep, lean back and float beneath these clouds? My lips open
To receive you. // The rose marks a before and after, grows large,
Then larger, petals push against four walls, bears down on the floor, spreads
Across the ceiling, until there are no more words, no room
For us now but this blossoming.
