Rose I/O 

Her greenhouse spits out mutants.

Sun's crawled above the trees, she carries 
Palms of rose brides
From birth nursery to glass-paned bed. 

She lines them up. 
She crosses threshold of the cage she's built today.

These flowers defy genetics.
These flowers resist good sense.

They arrive smelling of barrelled tea, sunburnt linen, citrus birth
And folly holds, of roses, edgy, sweet.  

A day, perhaps.  A week
Before she watches 
(now familiar)
Grief's wronged fingers strangle
Life into her firecracker blooms.  

These are now roses of
Sunspoiled lemonade, scythe-swept wheatfields, sour wet paint.  

Their color holds, but stench of transformation scars her sight.