Gillian Osborne
Poem With Oratory and Roses

              Unlike a catastrophe, a rose—
              its ahistorical petals—

              not an interruption in an office
              where a woman is making notes
              toward the smell of onions by an open window
              where another woman is making
              space apart from anguish or family
              for anticipation, or humidity.
                                                                A rose grows.




              1.

              Between seer and seen
                            anthropologist and hunter
                            giver and the given

              a blob of emollient color




              5.

              The petals of the family
              are irregular in number




              2.

              A rose referring to other roses
                            More often than not
              Feminized and prickling

                                          As a lover references the hunt of bodies for a body

              Giving in or changing
              If a