A Painting of Yellow Roses
if it’s a good one
can make you see again
how it’s dusk, in the countryside
with a farm in the distance
but you’re so up close
to the flowers you can almost
reach out and touch
their full-blown petals.
There’s a hazy light
that makes it seem
like a slight mist hangs around
the blooms. You can tell
which petal might fall
first. It would be the softest
collapse you could imagine –
and that one petal
would set in motion a whole
bloom shedding its layers.
The painting is poised
at the moment
before that happens:
the slither groundwards.
In the meantime
all you can do is
pause and smell
the roses.