Cost of Lost

Cost of Lost

I didn’t throw the pretty rose
into the compost pile.

She jumped in all alone—
his arms decaying and waiting.

I tried to reach out during the fall,
reached fingertips of pain, fear, and gall,

tips stretching and grasping thorns, and then air,
stretching stern and stiff, and out in despair.

I tried to reach out during the long and hard fall,
blood-scarred hands will prove it all,

bloody hands now wrung in fear,
wanting to reach in the pile so near,

yet fearing decay would enter my wound,
knowing paralysis was all we rehearsed,

fearing that nothing leads only to ruin,
fearing decay could not be reversed,

knowing that knowing would lead to the loath,
fearing the loathing and loathing the lie,

knowing no want, but wanting to know . . .

. . . . . . wanting to know . . . .

No man should die the way I have died.

And knowing, so knowing, that no matter how
pretty or sweet the rose in the mow,

left in the compost so long, long enough—
it soon turns to compost—

and that’s really rough.