“What’s in a Name?”
By Kathryn Haig
She closes her eyes against
Crimson skin and a blushing thorn, soft
Petals unfolding in her palm, reaching for the sun but
Sagging under the weight
Of a dew drop.
Red tears fall from her fingers –
A crucifixion, she sighs,
In which she
Is complicit, the sharp and silver
means resting between her feet, having fallen
at the prick.
Sometimes she wishes she was
Just a name, that name
Just words, those words
Just letters, those letters
Just lines, those lines
Just ink, that ink
An idea never conceived – an idea un-
blossomed. Not gone
Because it never
Had been.
What’s in a name? That which we call
A hope not yet fulfilled and a dream
As yet undreamt, an expectation
Disenchanted and a flower that lives
Dying from the moment its stem is
cut.
