Ichor running through her veins
All blood is pushed aside
Her eyelids shut, her heart on ice
My fate she would decide

Wilted romance, rotting vines
Garden left in thorns
A lonely rose from last years bloom
Bent over in her scorn

New seeds unplanted, sterile lay
Her cold impounds the soil
To blow within a fallow lust
Abandoned there to toil

With one more look, beyond all hope
My vision love impaired
Her verdict guilty, poison laid
—in blindness I despair

(Longwood Gardens: February, 2022)