Five Roses

Five roses in a jar

On the kitchen table

Layers of petals

Skirts and frills

Make shadows

Like folds of flesh

Four of them are

Antique white

Like an old 

Wedding dress

Tinged with

The gray-pink

Of silver polish

The fifth is paler

More ivory than blush

The color

Of old paper &

Pear-shaped

Instead of round

What is written

In the cells

Of these blooms

Whose blood

Is on their thorns

The eye is drawn

To difference

It calls everything

Into question

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Since we're spending so much time at home these days due to Covid, I've been putting extra effort into making it a nice place, including buying flowers for the kitchen table every week. And it's important to remember the people who grew, picked, and packaged them. 

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