Early Crime

EARLY CRIME Old man’s garden overcrowding Vegetables between the roses flowering Network maze of strings and sticks Wheelbarrow with stones and bricks Rainwater in old metal barrel. Late summer decaying cabbage roses – pink coral Intoxicating perfume and petals about to fall Hanging not by threads and strings but by sheer will Their life shorter than a shy girl’s laugh Tomorrow they would fall off Delicate soft flakes of perfumed damask Wide open the last drops of sun to ask And the last last rays of rain to soak. Left alone while two men sat and spoke I played with roses’ stems Bending under the weight of blooms on them As I felt the softness of the petals The biggest ones dropped all Their damask in an instant Down to the petal-carpeted soil it went I was left clutching the thorny stems With no flower at all on them. Men came back after their chat and Found me with string and stem in hand They joked about my rose-destruction time But I felt guilt, it was a real crime. In my mind’s maze still remembered today, Child memories do not easily decay. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Entered in Paula Swanson's Contest "Childhood Memory"