Damn those roses—
They’re gossiping again,
Vain old ladies in their red hats!
Look at that ring of thorns—some necklace!
Their chatter fills the leaves of the pear tree,
Riling the mocking-bird,
Scolding the yucca,
Shaking down pear-blossoms.

©2008, Jack Peachum

Jack Peachum is a sometime poet and actor who lives in a haunted old manse, The Venable’s House, in Clarksville, Virginia, with many ghosts, his wife Julia and a lovely bulldog named Eleanor. Several of his poems appear in our other seasonal anthologies: “Our Pierrot in Autumn” in the fall collection, “Cottonwood Summer” and “Julep Season” in the summer collection, and The Migrant” in the winter collection.

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