In your hand, a frail rose bud,
the edges whispering falls fatal hues,
curled up in exile,
of the once bright colors that remain.

The fleeting caress of petal’s memoirs,
bloom against gentle fingers,
bent like crooning midwives,
soothing scavengers.

This innocence plucked from wounded stalk,
shifts uncomfortably in the wind,
subtle tremors pining,
for the time and place where they began.

A woefully bare stem, violated,
standing amidst the rubble of its life,
a solitary piteous steel pipe,
its thorns shorn, its head in your hand.

The void you etched,
an echo of absence,
dark – wanting – growing,
where the flower never will again.