Bonjour de la Rose

Rosie's taken 
that pill again.

Painting the kitchen
with a finger-nail
polish brush,

Arabesques of cherubs
every three inches.

As her son
hacks with pneumonia,
She hums
an unwritten fugue.

There is a place,
One day,
Where cherubs
fly away as,
at sixteen,
that boy
opens his veins

and dies like
a promise.


A day when
Rosie tells a new love,
"You're just
like my son."

as Cherubs
weep down
dirty walls.