a space rose

a space rose tall and shy to my eye level

i, a lamb who was to fly over the moon

but you're awake now – we're our own to revel

so she's shapely, and an ambrosial maroon

unaware, i stayed there, watered the devil

til i caught my thought mid-air and i ballooned

hot and expanded in a basket i went

to the atmosphere where fragrance, hers, unbent

suddenly above the asteroid I was full

didn’t follow, didn’t hypnotize, i did

at the top of my inhale, did feel the world

as a gentle, faraway thing, intimate

and unencroaching, just of magnetic pulls

of petals swirling, coals oh-so barely lit

i landed hungry for the seeds that split land

grandstanding upside-down trees: growth out of hand

i met the prince a few hours after he died

he, in a crown, refracted sunset violet

sat on the ground, and rosy, he happy cried

“my friend, you were created by a pilot”

regaling me with tales of pure springs belied

by thorns of spite, the need for water, while it

is not a muzzle, but the space to love her –

thorned creature – that brings redolent wonder