Red, Red Rose

• Jacqualyn Fyfe, Grade 12
• Poetry
• 2020

A red, red rose.
Why thank you for this ephemeral gift.
It does dull the pain of wounds and bruises
A red, red rose, you imagine as a doctor of sorts or perhaps a counsellor
It will make it all okay.
The rose stares at me, mocking me, for who could be as beautiful as it.
For something so beautiful, its thorns are plenty
The colour burns through my eyes, red, red.
I wish it had been the first time I had seen such a crimson.
But that is why it’s here.
I feel the rose grow 6 feet, now towering above me as I lay helpless
It grows a familiar face and familiar knuckles
Again, and again. That bright crimson.
I cry. Perhaps I will never stop. I will fill the sea twice over
and drown the fields of
Red, red roses.