Best Bend Forward

By bend and nose
by eyes and toes

we can only
go a head
of ourselves
instead

of looking up
stopping to stoop
and smell a beauty
that eyes cannot spell

what others don't see
what we cannot tell
about the roses in your past
kneeling eyes downcast

By not being Here
By smelling your own Fear.



Image of painting by John William Waterhouse [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, The Soul of a Rose, 1908.