The Rose

The rose sits bedded in her lay
kissed by the sun through the day;
of men she gives no regard or
speech when they confess to adore
her rich velvet pelt lined with silk
of stem and leaf and each morn's milk,
for the rose is wise and knows too soon
the turning of a man's heart in the length of a moon,

that when their fingers grasp to take
against her will her beauty raped,
crushed for the love of another rose
and one who can think and not just pose;

and feel! Feel the return of a beat
in a man's chest and respond to spreading heat-
so she, the rose, always knows
her life is lived and lost by love alone.