Roses

I want to talk today
about roses.
Red ones.
Roses that I am not in the habit of buying, sending, receiving, sniffing at,
or even squashing inside the fat Oxford dictionary -
just for the pleasure
of watching them lose the habit
of enchantment.

I want to talk today
about that shade of
memory:
crackly, sour, brittle,
one-dimensionally
intact -
inside the fat, hard-cover Oxford dictionary.

I want to talk today
about fat dictionaries
that cling to rose-wood shelves,
in denimesque hard covers:
the kind I no longer buy.

I want to talk today
about the things I no longer buy:
because I need not,
because I must not,
because so many others cannot,
because nobody tells me 'It's a gift... please'.

I want to talk today
about the gifts I do not accept
on account of
space issues
fabric and texture and 'will-it-last' issues
memory issues
retrieval and retractment issues.

I want to talk
of issues that have nothing to do with today
or everyday.

I do not want to talk today.

I do not want to talk today.


(C) Annie Zaidi, August 2005