Bind No Roses with Twine
written by: Fiona Paterson
Don’t present me with a rose!
Bulgarian, Persian, antique Elizabethan- one created in my name-
I am me – I don’t need any other name or representation, Mr Shakespeare!
I’ve had them all – earnest, singled silver Rosenkavalier proposals – Dorothy’s perfect heart-enclosing floweret.
Elegant long-stemmed, making a point – effusive dozens – the amorous fifty left at night neath my window….
Kissed and strewn galore – left on a pillow – with cursive messages and teasing question marks.
Petals pressed, caressed – faded in albums – drying in jars of yesteryear-
Preserved in framed domes like Rosaria in her Sicilian casket of waxed slumber.
In perfume vials exuding memories of scents at dusk.
Drapery on coffins – tear-tossed into graves – lamented as the last ones of the fading summer,
Adorning nuptials and queens, circling cakes, youthful wrists, and tresses.
Pinned to heaving decolletage – lapels – corsages and the filigree of Thracian crowns.
Röslein auf der Heide of romantic walks-
Of longing, Burne’s love, beauty, mortality –
Wild, thorned-briars smothering emotion –pleasure and pain- kiss from a rose on the grey ……
Passionate, deepest carmine, tender pink, flirty yellow. purest ivory- I belong not to that vase!
No, roses hold not my secrets – nor carry my nor your feelings!
Replace the ephemeral bloom with your words – scatter them into the breeze loudly, whisper them gently in gardens and fields.
Let me feel them flutter from your lips, let me breathe them in, caressing their forms
Press them in ink and preserve on white sheets – pour them into the rose’s empty cast – an imprint forever on my soul -bound to my heart.
- Bind No Roses with Twine - November 14, 2025
