Torturing roses, petal by petal,
he watches downy dashes of deep crimson
descend to the floor,
dropping in a dulling descrescendo
at hardly one hundred heartbeats per hour.
Knowing already that she loves him not
he clings to the stem
as though it bring any sense or salvation,
but the tighter he clasps that broken dream
the deeper the thorns inearth into his palms
and as he has not the heart
to remove those thorns buried deeper still
it is the delicate surface which suffers.
Soon, he will strip the petals bare
and by then he will not be unrooted
with glossy eyes like some horticultural prize
and just bloody thorns in his hands.
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