Obsolete

 

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The rose is obsolete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 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

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