Invisible wind speeding
in fierce gales through the night
whips the window-boxed, black rose
against the picture-window pane.
Battered with stem broken, the flower
leans against the glass, a pane of fused sand
impervious to blows and oblivious
to the obliteration of black beauty.
Lighting from chandeliers illuminates
and reveals remnants of black matter
stained in rouge-red stuck to glass.
The image of devastation distorts
the view of the chiaroscuro blueprint
pictured in the picture window.
Revulsion ricochets
on the prescription lens
in twelve pairs of eyes
isolated in the room
to hunt and to find
black-and-rouge-red
pieces of matter
among matters of fact.
Rage flares; hungry hate
devours dispute;
and dogma is dramatized.
The jury
― faces powered
in shades of faint-hysteria
and featuring lips
shaped as “Cupid’s bow”
in tints of stunning blood ―
dictates judgment:
Cut the black matter off its stem.
