I want to know more about roses.
I want to be given a rose, a yellow rose, I want to be given a rose
by the kind of person who always carries secateurs
and they’re giving it to me
just because they’ve read this poem about my wanting
to know more about roses. Their etymology.
I want it tucked into my hair. I have no interest in hair
apart from Kate Winslet’s hair in Titanic
when she takes out that jewelled comb and shakes
her hair down over her shoulders like a French girl
or her almost-boyfriend’s sketch of a French girl.
I suppose it symbolises her emancipation
or something. Maybe I should say
I don’t care about roses apart from Rose in Titanic.
I’ve always felt that Titanic was a bit of a prologue.
Like what does Rose do next? Where does she go?
I hope she mastered spitting not like a man but like herself.
I hope she spat herself dry. I hope she spat into many mouths
and lived long enough to play The Sims,
to make herself and Jack on The Sims and watch him
teach their improbably gorgeous but pixelated children to walk.
And at the very end is Old Rose dead
in Titanic Heaven kissing Jack on the staircase
whilst her husband is up in Normal Heaven
watching like the rest of us, thinking
dude what the fuck? What the actual fuck?