Declining to Pink

The mountains are dressed in a mist
of blood. The blade has been
withdrawn. It had been thrust, was wiped
clean of carnation, and thrown

into the precipitations
of the river, fast
with incriminations. It is lonely
without knives; it is cold and lonely

without the arms to draw rubies
from the earth. We pass through the aid
of fields and snow, cold
and prone, entrancing blooms.