Look at the rose you have given me,
the one i have launched across the room-
it is not harmless,
though you would like me to believe
no hazard lies in its intricate red folds,
I can hear it rasping, gurgling
straight through the stem.
And at night i am magnetized.
It rolls effortlessly towards me,
a dropped lion whose mouth opens wide
again and again,
in hunger or despair:
begs me to reconsider
as if i were not botched
or lobotomized
by love.