A Poem for the Horticulturist with a Soft Spot for Opera

The flower that swallowed people,
already swollen to an indecent beauty,
swallowed an opera-singer
and thrilled the world incredulous
with legatos, staccatos, crescendos.
Its petals billowing rich red,
 
dribbled dark burgundy stains
to a star of blinding purple brilliance.
Its stamens, topped in solar ash,
hummed tremolo for television
while the stem was a flow
of swan's neck to the ground.

Day and night the concert enthralled
a world, at the garden wall,
drenched in orgasm.
But a flower's life is short,
its edges betrayed its age;
petals, cracked and folded,

fell like rotten teeth.
That day the opera-singer protruded,
in mid-bar, from the shameless stem
he stopped abruptly,
fixed his collar and walked away
not a little embarrassed.