explosions of roses

Spring rain has leaked into early summer. Have you noticed how many roses there are? Wedding dress white ones and monte carlo pink ones and lemon coconut icing yellow ones and red wine faded lipstick ones and flaming tea stained orange ones and bruised vovo ones and I wasn’t yellow enough so I started bleeding red at the edges ones.

They are spilling and tumbling and throwing and cascading and falling. They are thick with themselves and sick with themselves and dying on their branches and one single one is plucked and left on a concrete gate post and their petals are shed with abandon and the streets of Footscray look like a Paris florist where they toss petals with artistry to try and make you buy something but here it’s all for free they are so cheap and common in every household garden, that much joy and that much beauty so brazen in its ordinary everywhereness.

Out for a run their scent assails me, blown on the wind, seeping up from the ground, hurling itself between cracks in front fences, like so many drunk women swaying, waiting to be picked up or plucked, admired, treasured, taken away.

At home, a single white rose clutched in my hand.

Put it in a glass of water, place it on the kitchen table.

It is still unfolding.

I know it will wilt and die.

But not yet.