The affliction of a rose is of its hue, A deep disgusting red like blood without breath. Oh how it makes a crimson wreck of an amorous nose, A rose. This its clandestine depth: A rose is a rose is a rose And both the adder beneath it. How now is the charming connotation so bequeathed it? Sickness falls once bit upon, It matters not the circumstance thereon. Imbibes of blood, That allergy does, And so leeches this lively dye. Sneeze away this viral pollen, Bleed no more and so it dies. But dogma decrees that so shall it be A pis aller to let decay this eros. Yet, Is there balm in Gilead? As the timelessly exalted syntagma goes? Do these poets sing certitude or chicanery, That there are blessings to be had? So they repeat duet and say, That roses can be sated, That blood set free might return to be ours forever. Did they glimpse the incompatibility of fact and fancy? That rooted roses can be boundless wellsprings, Never to overflow with blooming red recip