Lindi-Ann Hewitt-Coleman

1.guardians of gateways
and sleeping beauties
sacred to the goddess
and hungry goats.

2.in spring we dry the petals
gather bowlfuls
spread a purple sea
on cloths in the sun –
october smells like roses.

3.there was a rose king of durbanville
he lived down the road.
i never got to see his garden
or what enchantment lay
beyond his high hedges,
but late summer we
picked pomegranates
from his fence
cracked open the pinking skin
ate them single-handedly
while pushing our bikes up the hill.

4.she folded her hands
inside each other
tight like a rose bud
held them in her lap
said she had waited too long
to speak,
to long to forgive
she feared she would fall apart.
cut roses do that sometimes
drop their petals before they open.

5.if you lick the back of a thorn
broken from the stem, just so
you can stick it on your nose –
touch the edge of your existence,
like a rhino.

6.she said i am
not asking you
to buy me flowers –
just pick a rose
on your way back in
so i know
you were thinking of me
and maybe
you had missed me.
and he shrugged
his shoulders hopeless
because out there
the light had slipped low
below the clouds
illuminating the geraniums
against the storm dark sky
and his breath was held
to the beauty
and he had not
thought of her
at all.

7.it was really just
that i had run out of ink
that had me printing your picture
rose tinted.