The Flowers of Evil

A dusk, a glazed verandah, it's just rained, a smell of lilac, earthworms and wet earth, an awkward silence - the confusion chained my tongue: “What if she’ll laugh at? Is it worth?” A glass of wine casts the vermilion shade over a tablecloth, a rocking chair sways quietly, its oscillations fade as far as you immerse into the rare edition of “Les Fleurs du mal”* I brought for you, a curious nocturnal moth time and again sits on your polka dot chintz dress, it’s getting late, a creamy froth of lilac trees spills out of the garden through open windows. I lament, I bide my time. Oh, how the words of love are hard in such an inclement May… In June you died. So many years have passed since then, my love. Wine’s drunk, lilac is gone, the moth in vain knocks on the screen, only the shadow of your chair still sways in my delirious brain. *(fr.) “The Flowers of Evil” by Charles Baudelaire 12.10.2019 Give Me Your Best New Poem Poetry Contest Sponsored by: Emile Pinet