Robert Fanning

The Rose Peddler

Through empty daybreak alleys, on streets
steaming with last night's rain, you pedal

into another day of passing strangers, a blur
of empty glances at your roses’ muted horns.

Evenings you return home, your cart sagging
with unwanted flowers. The sky ash and cinder,

the hours falling darker in a world without want.
Later you’ll dream their faces pressed to windows

watching you ride by, your bundled heap of bouquets
a red wick dimming into the distance. Dream of one

who opens his mouth to sing: gone goes my beauty,
gone goes all. His words like singed petals falling.

Dream of ember and star, of chimney smoke
and shadow. Of silhouette, of billowing gauze.

Of moon and maw, the night a sweet-tinged, scarlet
bulb, wet stems loosely tied, of bows falling open.

Of one who swallows the thornsong of his want.
Of one who hushes the bloodloud wish.

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Robert Fanning (he/him/his) is the author of four-full length poetry collections: Severance (Salmon Poetry), Our Sudden Museum, (Salmon Poetry), American Prophet (Marick Press), and The Seed Thieves (Marick Press) as well as two chapbooks, Sheet Music (Three Bee Press) and Old Bright Wheel (The Ledge Press). His poems have appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, Shenandoah, The Atlanta Review, The Cortland Review, Rattle, failbetter and many other journals. He lives in Mt. Pleasant, MI.