Under the Rose, by Sherri Bedingfield

Pandora's Box, by Rene Magritte (Belgium), 1951.

Under the Rose

I’ve cut my hair, short in the back, 
an edge of one ear shows 
like a barely open door, with no light 
in the room beyond.

A red-wash haze of sky makes 
rows of buildings purple shadows,
duplicates, mirrors, matches.
Street lights wait for night.

The cobbled-brick bridge
is in front of me. No cars in sight, 
nothing, no one, but they are somewhere.
The surprise already happened, 

the miseries released. I wear my father’s 
Bowler Derby and black coat. River holds 
still as glass. The strange white rose 
flares, a temptation--  not what it seems 

but whiter than light. Under the leafy rose 
a jar shaped box split open. Expectation 
waits on the bottom of the broken box. 
The sad city doesn’t know and I walk into it. 

Sherri Bedingfield

Sherri Bedingfield’s poetry has been published in numerous anthologies and small press
publications. She has presented her poetry at many Connecticut venues as well as the Cornelia
Street Café, a poetry bar in New York City and in Dingle, Ireland. Several of her poems have
been performed in Plays with Poetry by East Haddam Stage Company. Sherri is the author of
Transitions and Transformations and The Clattering, Voices from Old Forfarshire, Scotland.
She did the artwork on the covers of both books. Sherri works as a psychotherapist and a family
therapist.