Dear Gertrude,
by Carol Kanter


A rose is a rose is most indeed, 
now you mention it, a rose

and not, say horse manure—
though either gift of nature
at times might best be used
to spruce the other up—

but what I ache to ask is why
you call on tactics so blasé, 
slice any living thing as fact,
as flat and there and that is all?

If each parsed rose exactly equals
the sum of all its Cubist planes
(no more, no less) its details fade
to genotype and leave us guessing

if you dream of red or peach 
or midnight, if your flower reeks
or wafts—dry-shod you shy
from dewdrops, keeping us

at arm’s length.  We peek for you
camouflaged amid leaf shadows,
girdled by tough thorny branches,
every fulsome feature trellised.

Gertrude, dear, would you profess
a poem is a poem is a poem?