Aï No Korīda Rosa Gabriel Oak

I breathe you one more time

before I snip your head off, Gabriel

precision snip above the next five-leaved shoot

below the third. Breathe you, brother of Une Rose,

Malle’s chemical trickery of the triple flip

landed in a perfect thud, father of Aqui Estoy’s 

dupe for the tongue in a sip. Though decapitation’s

not my thing I do it lustily

because multiples are my thing

and I want more.

O.

The silky collapse

of you in my hand, Gabriel:

petallic motility

useless beauty

I throw

your remains

to the sky.

Lesley James