Above Her Garden

A rose above her garden
The dusty watering can
Rainless dirt patch, brittle
Anemic roots distend

Imagoes find no ground here
Trusses and blades dulled brown
Origin of the famine treaty
Removal of the briar crown

Sincerest of the perennials
Legatee of the sepia yard
Exposing overlapping petals
Wrinkled, puce, tinctured of nard

Monoliths crumbled, wanting
Yesterday’s sun beheld
Rose of recompense, sure
Outré endogenous bell

Slowly, the wasteland recrudesced
Even souls succumb to desperation