Such a red is extreme in these precincts,

an enlargement of memory. And here are six roses

large as hearts outside Bennigan’s,

a hint of traffic light in esoteric ivy, centripidal and fixed

with helical filaments.

The society of clouds-as-thoughts is larger than the town,

turning rose against carmine

like initials in an insular manuscript: the first page of St. Matthew

in the book of Kells,

Chi Rho with its curlicues of hair, each thought tried smaller.

It was often said so and so

lost their sight over such details, in scrutiny of text

or embroidery of flowers.

How small my heart, that it should be so colorful and last

so long against the universe.

Its beats coming in hundreds like bats from the cave in Texas

answering the untoward:

sudden shear winds written of, the qualities of genius

where a mind flies forward

and a body lags behind.The nothing but  come undone from its author.

The place on a nerve where trees assemble

to be replenished since the hillside is gone into decks and cabinets.

Where vista is a memory of roses

whose heads are arborized clouds and roots are red-eyed as forgiveness.

 - Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts  Vol. 1 #2 2008   finalist