The rose is obsolete
but each petal ends in
an edge, the double facet
cementing the grooved
columns of air -- The edge
cuts without cutting
meets -- nothing -- renews
itself in metal or porcelain --
whither? It ends --
But if it ends
the start is begun
so that to engage roses
becomes a geometry --
Sharper, neater, more cutting
figured in majolica --
the broken plate
glazed with a rose
Somewhere the sense
makes copper roses
steel roses --
The rose carried weight of love
but love is at an end -- of roses
It is at the edge of the
petal that love waits
Crisp, worked to defeat
laboredness -- fragile
plucked, moist, half-raised
cold, precise, touching
What
The place between the petal's
edge and the
From the the petal's edge a line starts
that being of steel
infinitely fine, infinitely
rigid penetrates
the Milky Way
without contact -- lifting
from it -- neither hanging
nor pushing --
The fragility of the flower
unbruised
penetrates space.
-- William Carlos Williams