Bloom in Reverse

Your Rose Bush

40 yoUR RoSe BUSH I killed it today, and not by accident: each thorny branch resisting then giving way, no match for a woman with intent and loppers on a cold winter morning, chopping, and though I’m not cruel and don’t hate roses, these particular roses always bloomed and died the same day, as if to say whatever beauty was possible was only fleeting, temporary, the way “a rose is a rose is a rose” is a line that diffuses the thing in the mind until what it refers to is lost or cannot be conjured, and so your rose bush is not— not here to invoke or provoke, not here to dismember the mind, no false hope, a bloom in reverse, just another way to say I disremember you. ...