Rose petals thick and heavy
Just ready to wrinkle
Strong, firm, delicate
Simple
Feigning delicacy.
Tighter and tighter to their middle
Lips curling back
Pouting open
All eventually revealing the
Veins!
Veins
Veins
Veins on the roses
From the underside spread upward,
Uncurled,
Veins.
Some so proud and broad
Some coy and curtseying
Some wide open, greeting you.
——
Some angling to the light
——
Some fading their color at the tip
——
Some!
Some doubling inward. Two twists inside!
Why? Overcrowding.
Petals wide,
petals too ready, petals broad
And she made herself a lover
——
Some older, wiser
By quicker death wisdom grows
The peaked face within
Afraid
Afraid of what is coming faster for her.
Something her beauty could not slow
An aging ballerina, refusing to retire her slippers
——
Some wider
More careless
Hippies
——
Some like a dance
Such a vulnerable entrance  
Opening up her lips, her arms, her legs,
Spouting out her tiny tongue
Aroused
——
Some so full
Hiding herself in her layers
More of her.

Ancient.
Just a blip.

Trimmed from their bush. Here to die in a vase by my bed.