"FACINGFACES 2002 - 04" SELECTED POETRY

YELLOW ROSE

Even dried and dead,
a yellow rose is enough
a yellow handkerchief is the last
they saw of her
if they could be sure
she was gone for good. She would never
do that to them.
Her children, her dark, bearded husband
stood in the too yellow sun
and watched it waving
goodbye or surrender
or freedom in
the last breath of breeze
torn on the rosebush
she tended, fluttering
her name is, was
Rosa, and on her empty
coffin yellow roses sleep.
Her littlest, Martita, asked
for red ones, or, at the very least,
bright pink, but Rosa’s words
came softly as petals,
“Yellow is for caution cuedado,
and I want to live a long life.”

Anastasia Royal
USA
copyright 2002