He smiled like a crease in a photograph
When she sat like a child on his knee
They ran to the mill each day, grinding their secret
And she said, “you don’t say it but I know you love me”
That summer she painted the roses
That climbed the wall to her room
The ones that cut his hands as he climbed with them
The ones that to this day still bloom red
He grew to be cold and colorblind
He grew to frame in another life
She grew to remember the still frames
Of the pictures they took in the booth at the fair
The fever she brushed in her youth on a canvas
Is leaning in his attic collecting dust
Aging gracefully in an endless night while he lies
With his family below
That picture she painted has faded
It’s the one with the blooms
And his wife, she hates it
Because she knows the truth
He grew to be cold and colorblind
He grew to frame in another life
She grew to remember the still frames
Of the pictures they took in the booth at the fair
Sometimes he'd fall like the rooftops were walls
Sometimes he'd scream like the doorways were halls
Sometimes he'd whisper, pen in hand, writing one or the other
Saying I never said it then but I loved her
When he passed away, his wife came by
To leave a keepsake she said she’d just found
Saying, “all is forgiven from his lifetime
And anyway, he has no need for this now”
You can see them the roses she thinned out
Still show through the blue of the years, like rust
Glowing red - the summerlong love, the rope swing
The lake and the lust . . . and the lust.
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