by Alexandra Lytton Regalado

by Alexandra Lytton Regalado

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.

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Alexandra Lytton Regalado is author of Matria, winner of the St. Lawrence Book Award (Black Lawrence Press, 2017). She is a CantoMundo fellow, winner of the Coniston Prize, and her work has appeared in The Best American Poetry, The Academy of American Poets, Narrative, Gulf Coast, and Creative Nonfiction among others. Co-founder of Kalina press, Alexandra is author, editor, and/or translator of more than ten Central American-themed books. www.alexandralyttonregalado.com