Last Poem
for P.

I went to pick a rose for you
and found there were no roses - no symphony, no cherish.
The seasons are lost in a brushstroke now,
the blankness of my inattention. And I wanted to give you
those easily crushable petals (they are so easy
to grieve for) but the morning frosts
have seized us all. Instead I gave you the tissue
of my thin words, and said
I wish these were roses.
Brought like Josephine rushed roses through the blockades,
the giddiness of bringing those buds into a new country.
The gentle, pressable flesh of them
an explanation for my warring self. We sat together
in the cold house, the words between us withering,
having lost the libraries of eloquence
they used to hold, the pattern of sunshine dropping through
the red lace shawl hung suspended in the window.

First published in The Age, 2006

Kate Middleton is a Melbourne poet, and ABR's featured poet of the month.

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