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Water Lilly
Gallery, MoMA
You chose this tranquil, quiet
place to meet me.
The soothing blues and greens, the exquisite flowers
floating on the surface, like the surface of our lives.
Myself, whose days are all the same, tending
vegetable seedlings with my sister's children,
blotting tears with words under the stars.
Yourself, whose quiet hours spent with books
and research hide such hope, such passion
concealed like the axe you bring for me
as we stand together in the shadow of Monet.
You chose this tranquil place
to find our ending.
I tried so hard to give a gentle "no", a water
lily "no"...but you insisted on the axe,
the severing, the cruelty. You are a man,
I a woman, our slashing weapons honed for months.
The blood drips down the painted flowers
to where their hidden roots hold fear for me.
In parallel lines it shocks in crimson.
It could be yours. It might be mine. It speaks
of want, and waste, and the fading scent of flowers.
~ Delilah Riordan, 2000
* MoMA: Museum of Modern Art, New York City, NY.
