The Tulips

enter like a corps de ballet
crimson and violet
vivid as wax crayons.

Heads held high in expectation
they sense their moment
is about to come.

Arranged in a bourrée en couru
they’re happy to conform
until time makes rebels of them.

Their rhythms change
they fling impatient bodies
their petals fade to a ballet blanc

and fall to leave stamens exposed
arms stripped of leotard skin
waving in a semaphore of exaltation.

Their dying is beautiful
though it robs my room of colour
and leaves it smelling of sweat.

 

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Rebecca Farmer was born in Birmingham but her parents came from Ireland and she grew up with the idea that Dublin meant ‘home’. Her debut pamphlet Not Really was a winner of The Poetry Business Pamphlet Prize in 2014. Rebecca was a 2016 Writer in Residence at Gladstone’s Library and she is currently completing a PhD at Goldsmiths on the late works of Louis MacNeice.