Remembering Dilys Laing

David Rosenthal

Dilys,
Iam watching a flower through a cloud of pink smoke,
frightening birds from the rock,
watching a crow upon rippling air.

You have roots in your hair now.
They embrace,
like a small, white boy wrapped round a tree,
his white hands,
his white nails digging into the bark.
         and I am standing watching,
         wanting to touch him and afraid.
         He is so still.

         I sat beneath the roof of trees
         crying,
         amplified by death,
         and a night
         orange spotted.
There is a cemetery
where fog spirals a million flowers (1,000,000)
through yesterday's rain
                   but
there is one flower that shocks
like the hideous hand of a frog.
Its moist tenderness is bruised by fingers.

I am watching the flower,
through a cloud of pink smoke,
watching a crow upon rippling air.