Roses 3 ways

PART II: hips

Victoria Adukwei Bulley

Charles Jones, Seedpods on the head of a Standard Rose c. 1900

Evening, hips

In my part of the world, the colour is mostly drained out, the last winking yellow leaves flicker their tattered flags high in the tree where the branches reach like X-rayed lungs into the sky. Here, cold silver afternoon dims to leaden evening light. A gradient darkening you almost absorb through your skin. Evening: a single word poem carrying all of this.

And there in this moment before night, there it is. Crouched like a spider, it is wild and familiar and humming with inner red. A red like a single taillight way out on a gravel road. Among the tangle of briars, vitamin C beacon lighthouse toughened tomato on the branch. Half a dozen of these feels in your hands like a charm or a promise.