Peony Darker Pink Speckling
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
The mottling that comes before the death
Of peonies is beautiful and yet
An ugliness, a patent shibboleth
Belonging to these blossoms only, threat
And chill exclusive to these petals. This
Uniqueness in the grammar of each bloom
Expresses its phonetics in a hiss,
A silent hiss more like a muted gloom.
It weighs not through the garden. It is seen
Enough, though, if the eye translates it from
The wordless dialect between the sheen
Of pink. The darknesses are like a hum
Marked tacit in the score. A special ear
Or eye is needed to detect the jeer.
~ Phillip Whidden