poem || Jeff Harrison

A Rose Black Air

in rose black air
rose up
a rose (singing a
rose black air), &
from this rose
(black in this air),
rose your
pinched face
dead dirty
dissolving
animals
(wounded
night paw
plummet-flowers)
throat-walking from
quivery dead resignation

pinched face,
make the best
of time flooding your thorns
lest the wet rose air rust your
spindly straw