poem seedling #1 (why stop signs are good)

(Villanelle style using lines form Jane Roher’s “The Gearshift Poem” and “Room 703”)
Why Stop Signs Are Good
By: Jenica Mae Corbett

Eight years it is still happening-
on the day of his death

I strip butterfly petals, pink pollen lightening
my palms, gathering sticky beneath nails
holding them as he held me bleeding
eight years it is still happening.

petals fall into May’s damp breath
plucked of stem, young life
promised myth--
on the day of his death

the breeze turns, as if to accuse me of lying
leaving me to pick my picked from my lashes
picked as he did those glass shards, ignoring my pleading
eight years it is still happening

pink on white, cross on road leading
to every and nowhere, an etched name – Seth
eight years it is still happening--
on the day of his death.