Or if the title doth protest too much:
you, sitting on a bench in a dress,
Holding a red flower in one hand,
Me left wondering.
Behind you the park is spacious and soft
Like a pale green duvet on a clean bed
In an empty house in the country
Where all the windows are wide open.
Between the two of you is the bland
plank of the back of the bench,
the flesh of your upper arm pinched
by the splintered edge, the painted wood
unsympathetic beneath your bones,
straight lines ruled across the possibilities.
You are wondering as well, I think.
Imagining the blood spilt on the green duvet
If you were to. Wondering what can be taken,
Given, picked and offered without bleeding.
What it would be like if this flower was yours
And you did not have to sit in your dress,
Pretending.
