Rose Bowl, by Stephen Kingsnorth

Light Fixture. Photo provided by the poet.

​ 
Rose Bowl
 
No more fly papers strung aloft -
grave bottles blotched, stuck pretty card
of cottage, thatched, with hollyhocks -
though chains link bowl to ceiling rose,
the first such fit, more fifty years,
while petals pressed in attic box,
 
As boy I watched crazed circling flies,
where Flit had hung in poison cloud,
a burst propelled above our heads,
a nightly mist of foul smell,
will-o’-the-wisp, light shining through
the buzz career as droning died.
 
The open fanlight drew them in
from smog outside, though curtains lace,  
then daddy-longlegs, trailing thin, 
their draping legs collecting dust,
I hoping trail would drag them down,
cremation waiting at the base.
 
Opaque glass painted with those blooms,
they were a bunch, unlikely flowers,
a purple pansy, face, scare eyes -
oblivious to death within -
slight smaller than crȇpe poppy, red,
and asphodel, imagined there.
 
It looked down, shining bright, pearl bulb,
herbaceous swags in swathes about,
with aster shades and Michaelmas,
and daisies frittered, easy growth,
anachronistic primrose pale,
just like cott garden hung beside.
 
From toddler through to boyhood, youth,
then adolescence and its moods -
beneath cornflowers, forget-me-nots,
rhizomes, corms and bulbs in fruit -
until the lad became a man,
the rose was cut, the dead removed.
 
Till now, unwrapped, hung bowl restored.

Stephen Kingsnorth

Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales, UK, from ministry in the Methodist Church due to Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces curated and published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic Review.  He has, like so many, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.  His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com