Life's Epiphany

blackened rose petals outline her body
curled like a child's on the concrete
the softness of her skin out of place
in the hardness of the outside world;

naked in birth and death for everyone
to see under an insufficient blanket
of translucent dew, turning colors
as the sun rises over the city scape;


rose petals for every deranged lover
inscribed with the moans of black nights
and early morning screams, her chest still,
her eyes frozen in a shocked epiphany.