Roses.(Poem)

 
ROSES 
 
   My mother grew roses 
   whose names 
   belonged to a different era-- 
   Apollo, Montezuma, Mr Lincoln, 
   whose petals and whorls 
   gave off such reflections 
   you'd shield your eyes 
   in mid-summer 
   as you walked through 
   the front garden. 
 
   They grew like aristocrats 
   in rows and circular plots 
   behind bricks 
   and grey paling fences-- 
   those magnificent presences 
   that somehow gave 
   our suburban lives 
   a different kind of meaning. 
   People returning home 
   from the factories 
   in the afternoon 
   would stop to smell ...