A Dream of Blue Roses, by Federica Santini

Sleeping Beauty, by Henry Meynell Rheam (England) 1899

A Dream of Blue Roses 
 
 Your pierced hand is a thin embroidery 
of azure rivers and pain. Adrift 
in your trembling pulse the ocean-milk 
of your blood repeats the pattern of rain 
terse in August and spilling through the 
underground lode of your veins. 
 
This winter the roses are blue, they hint 
to renewal, to the end of sorrow and waiting: 
still entangled in sleep, your azure body glimmers 
with light. Your eyelids of silver resplendent,  
you’ll wake in the reversed lore of a dawn 
burning with shimmering light.

Federica Santini

Federica Santini lives in Atlanta, GA, and teaches at Kennesaw State University. She holds an M.A. from the University of Siena, Italy, and a Ph.D. from UCLA. A literary critic, poet, and translator, her work has been published in over forty journals and volumes. She is a 2021 Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writers Conference Fellow (Arizona State University).