Arboretum

I was a rose, or something else
blasted loose; I was a peony,
a morbid pink surrender. On the way
to the outhouses, there was a wall
that breathed with a thousand
filaments of green. When I inquired
about the names of streets, I was met
with a blank stare. Down by the docks,
a keening rose in the air; it issued
from inside columns made entirely
of thick buzzing wings. I found
bombed fragments: pieces of blue
and yellow tile, a half-moon’s
metal stare. The door to what might
have been a bedroom, the page
of a calendar still stuck to it
with a remnant of tape. Walls
with daisy chains of bullet holes.
A house beam in the shape of a wing,
a curling fern, a serpent’s severed tail.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Bygone.

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