#259 - the white camellia (Wollstonecraft Station)

 17.ix.20

259

the white camellia

(Wollstonecraft Station)

 

I saw the leaf with the lips

lying there

saw eyes up in branches

sky with its facing clouds

islands, all a map undone

 

this was first thing business

afoot

I might have said ‘aubade’

 

I was on my way and looked down

I was coming into the pedestrian tunnel

under the line

 

then sunlit saw… dirty

as if by picnic track… but here?

the smeared paper, stain familiar

already trodden…

stepped aside

I thought ‘some people’

and I wondered ‘but how?’

 

put on my glasses then

I saw the thing for what it was

 

I speculated

perhaps fallen from a lapel?

a basket?

 

I might have stooped for just a whiff then

but I left it there where it was

such sometimes my wish to share the love