{"id":1171,"date":"2016-08-01T07:59:31","date_gmt":"2016-08-01T14:59:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/?p=1171"},"modified":"2016-07-16T08:35:24","modified_gmt":"2016-07-16T15:35:24","slug":"petals-red-and-white-by-sandi-leibowitz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/?p=1171","title":{"rendered":"Petals Red and White by Sandi Leibowitz"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Lawrence

Lawrence Alma-Tadema [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n

Every night she bathed in a tub
\nafloat with crimson roses.
\nShe broke them at the throat,
\nset them to ride the tepid water
\nlike boats at peace
\nbefore she let the soft robe slip,
\nlet herself slip in, slip under.<\/p>\n

Opening her eyes, she saw
\nthe bodies of the blossoms bob above,
\nblood slowing
\nthen crescendoing
\nas she held her breath,
\ntook herself to the point
\nwhere lungs demanded answer.
\nOne beat beyond.<\/p>\n

That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s when they came to her.
\nThe women.
\nThe water a wavering barrier between them,
\nshe remained unseen,
\nas if a dreamer moved amongst her dreams.<\/p>\n

The first woman huddled underground
\nin a wet woolen coat,
\nshoulder to shoulder against anonymous others,
\nhat quavering while bombs shook the dank tile walls.
\nThe bather tried to comfort her,
\nwords bubbling out till she choked on them
\nand surfaced spluttering,
\nthe connection severed.<\/p>\n

The next night she tried again,
\nbut the Londoner was gone.
\nInstead a woman in skins kneeled before a fire,
\nstarry sky glimpsed through smoke,
\nheeding an elder\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tale told in an unknown tongue,
\nwhile she beaded the long black tail of her daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s braid,
\neach bead a response to the teller\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s syllables,
\nthe woman beading her own history,
\na tale of love and kinship.<\/p>\n

The bather wandered each night,
\nsampling lives. <\/p>\n

Someone in green velvet and a long pale plait
\nfled through stone corridors,
\nhands red to the wrist.
\nSomeone met her lover
\nin the forest shadows,
\nshedding jeans and vows.
\nWho were they?
\nThe bather stopped asking.
\nAccepted them as hers. <\/p>\n

Afterward, hair dripping onto terrycloth,
\nshe would arrange her collection in her mind
\nlike a gardener planning a herbaceous bed,
\npretty maids all in a row,
\nday-lilies amongst the dormant daffodils,
\nragged child beside the weeping queen.<\/p>\n

One night rose-water brought her to
\na true garden.
\nSomewhere. Somewhen.
\nNight. Summer.
\nAlmost she could smell
\nthese other roses, candle-white,
\nstar-burning in the darkness
\nwhere a lady waited
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwhy?\u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nin lilac silks.<\/p>\n

The bather swatted away
\nthe moth-thought that this time
\nshe had been seen.<\/p>\n

Grey eyes insisted
\non being met.
\nThe woman spoke.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Where are you? In what world
\ndo you float among red roses?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Underwater, the bather could not answer.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Who are you?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the silken woman asked. <\/p>\n

For the first time
\nin any world, someone asked,
\nsaw her.<\/p>\n

The next time the bather stayed under,
\nwould not rise past the floating roses\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 heads,
\nignored the urgency to breathe.<\/p>\n

Splutter and violence and upheaval done,
\nshe opened her eyes to
\nthe white-rose world.
\nNight. Summer.
\nSilk.
\nReady to answer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every night she bathed in a tub afloat with crimson roses. She broke them at the throat, set them to ride the tepid water like boats at peace before she let the soft robe slip, let herself slip in, slip under. Opening her eyes, she saw the bodies of the blossoms bob above, blood slowing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1171"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1173,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171\/revisions\/1173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}