Moss-Rose

My mother would grow roses with each hand,

drawing them forth from country-frothing air.

Draw them, shape them, cut them from the thorn;

lay them like bleeding shells about the house.

And with my ears to the lips of those shell-roses

I harked to their humming seas, secret as hives.

And with my lips to those same rose-shell ears

I spoke my crimson words, my stinging brain.

With lips, ears, eyes, and every finger’s nerve,

I moved, moth-throbbing, round each creviced fire.

As I do now, lost mother, country gone,

groping my grief around your moss-rose heart.