Naked Ladies
Pink petal sexily exposed
(no leaves to shelter them
From the sun) they burst
Through graves in abandoned churches
Or hug the fence lines of deserted homesteads.
You sometimes find them ‒ edgily erotic ‒
In the dark corners of colonial prints
Or gently stitched into early embroidery
As an afterthought among the rose,
But flowering openly, and not easily missed.
Peter Bland