Black Rose

A single thorn
A single spindly stem
Thrusting upward
A single bud
Flowering, displaying its small delicate petals
A small act of defence, of beauty
A single black rose

Viewed across the barbed wire
Caught between the footpath and the motorway
Submerged within the unobtainable
Its brief desperate joy
The tantalising vision
Of a black rose

Battered bruised
In the sudden summer rain
It fades, bedraggled
Waiting to emerge again
All too briefly
Next year, perhaps
Possibly another black rose