Roses

There is no escaping the storm of roses crisscrossed on the split-cracked wall of a dead fountain arch. There is no escaping their uterine balls, expanding as a reminder of the children I never had. If you listen carefully you can hear the vibrations, the heart drone of their petal jaw-harps. And there’s no going back, no indiscovery of Mars or these red planets brooding before me, light predators, sun-hatched and bloodening like the fists of women who have gone to war.