Blue Rose

I buy a blue rose to describe and think of Yeats dipping his quill in an ah of ink, hoping that love on the page would be less painful, or at least more rakish, something to shove in a buttonhole and watch wilt, beauty slowly disintegrating to a bruise. Next morning, saturated with longing, I stumble to the kitchen for a vitamin, a bolster for my sad veins, and discover the crystal vase full of blue water, the rose having traded bodily fluids all night. It’s the exchange part of love Yeats and I do so well, the bleeding, fists full of paper cuts. The tributaries leading to our brains are wide open, the very thoughts we think, fantasies of you bending over to wipe up a spilled drink, catching a reflection in the puddle of my complete devotion. The only way I know how to love is to drown all those inconsequential colours, the pinks of modesty and the greens of being soothed, soak myself in a lack of oxygen, a gasp whenever...