Bittersweet Blanket

We wrestled on this bed of roses
over which of us was sweetest.
You liked to pull them up over us
to weave us in and snip the world out.

Once we lay for what seemed like hours
—never had we kissed so long! never
had we so few secrets to conceal
(from each other) but circumstances,
duty, which has "not the visage
“of a sweetie or a cutie”—expectations
breeding disappointments as you’d say—
‘til finally we argued about the news
and those things one reads there—or not
—a daily nothing to do with roses but
lists of malefactors and their deeds
all open to interminable questions
that can rip embroidered flowers
and worm a brain to leave it raving.

I try not to think of what we’ve lost
but of a sweetness I never suspected
existed before I saw the petite
fierce bud of joy that was your face
on a blanket full of yellow roses.

© Dan Goorevitch, 2008