My Nana’s Rose

This Rose is finest china

dipped in pixie dust

and splashed across the

lips with livid violet.

This rose is white,

like Nana’s hair

the only way I can remember her–

when both of us were sitting on a swinging bench

and staring out at her unruly garden,

a thing of wonder and of wilderness.

My awareness, even then, in fog;

even then like living in a memory.

This Rose is a memory of sun,

of paleness

refracted through sliding glass into

that tiny, vibrant corridor 

which smelled like Nana’s hair.

This is a memory of sun,

and of the gradient dream of

color hiding in its shade