South Carolina Riverbanks Zoo and Botanical Gardens
I.
Rosa X, small and hardy, plundered
from family cemetery.
You’re a climber, limber
on the trellis, tiny pink petals
brown and papery at the edges. Rose rustlers,
skilled in the archaeology of flowers,
plucked you from your grave bed:
a resurrection.
II.
White Virginia, desiccated
and yellow between pages of a notebook
full of letters to the dead. A daughter,
unschooled in goodbyes,
picked you from a burial shroud:
a remembrance.
Leave a Reply