Elizabeth Willis

S

Steady Digression to a Fixed Point

A rose can’ t change the world. It can only open or close.

A rose drives the world like an enormous gear.

It pushes a schooner east of Borneo.

When a body has been rearranged, it is held together with a rose.

A rose is a weapon, a guide, a compass.

It shatters the glass to explain a spilled blue shore. This is how we know we are in the presence of tragedy.

You shouldn’ t have. You couldn’ t have. You did. You are.

We piece together an aftermath.