Tamiko Dooley

LA VIE EN ROSE

i love you as roses / tumble with abandon over wooden picket fences / abundantly, recklessly

/ craning away from the bamboo stems / that try to tame them / reaching far from the trellis /

from the wire arch they’re trained to weave around / i love you as roses / bloom in bunches /

uncaring they are too many, too heavy / for the delicate stem / shouting their colours / and

when the petals fall and start to decay on the ground / i love you as the gardener who gently

sweeps them aside / remembering their scent that filled the air for a while.