The heart

She came home with a snow-white rose,
Its petals bleached of color and power and all that
there was left was flower, no scent, no memory,
just pallor.

She stole the thorns, whittled them down,
and placed them with a frown in a Valentine crown over her heart because,
because...she wanted someone to touch the rose,
the rose, and not her heart.

Then he arrived, and all he had were baskets of needles,
acupuncture needles, knitting needles, chopsticks sharpened
to killing needles,
And she was a ball of wool, a love-sick fool, and she let him,
No. She begged him to be a tool to knit
a tapestry, a travesty, a tragedy,
out of her,
and when he did,
she became
what he made.

They wore their creation, her and him.
They sat on in at their picnics and wrote on it in their dreams
and made love on it and wiped their mouths on it
after dinner,and sometimes used it when she shivered
and everytime she touched the cloth she lost a part
of herself that she'd sworn she'd protect
with the rose-thorns over her heart.

Over the years, the tapestry tore,
and their love wore out to a pout of a
rose bud when all its petals fell out and
she did not cry, did not cry
when the tapestry unraveled and
he drifted. He drifted, she stayed and replayed
the years of togetherness and oneness and wholeness and ownness
and when it all crumbled like the ashes of a burnt rose,
she smiled because she was safe,
she was safe.
He'd loved the tapestry, not her, she was still safe,
with the rose-thorn crown on her heart,
all he'd gotten was a part,
of her that she'd let him use,
the outer wool,
the shell,
but not her heart.