Tulips in Winter

Charlotte Holmes

Tulips with Winter Painting | Susan Lichtman

You’ve come to the end of landscape—
The nothing gleaned about desire
From a coral sky, from snow blue
As the long lost someone’s eyes
Never could have been. What old hurt
Insists that you remember how
The tulip’s dark heart unfolds just
Before the flower falls apart?
You look for meaning: arrangements
Of objects in space, cobalt and
Gold juxtaposed, the strange gray heart
At the center that signifies
Leaf, or shadow, or the open wound
The rest of the room coheres around.