Blood Roses Poem by Laura Russell

You gave me blood roses
Don't you deny,
Back when my heart was a rose
not an eye.

Heart shaped or lung shaped
They blossomed and died
Those roses, those roses
You used them to lie.

My roses, they withered
In a glass full of vapour
I pressed them in books
Between tissue and paper

The stems, I gave them
to soil and to germs
For nourishment
and to feed the worms.

The pages,
they flattened those petals and dried
Those petals, I used them
I used them to cry.

You gave me blood roses
Don't you deny,
Back when my heart was a rose
not an eye.


2005