Founded in the fall of 1991, Laurel Moon is Brandeis' oldest, national literary publication. Each issue we publish features original work from undergraduate students.
—inspired by Jean Dubuffet’s The Gardener Sniffing a Rose
He can’t help but to sniff at the rose once more.
Life no longer remains in his sky-gazing eyes.
All else fades into blackness except for the rose.
The wounds start to manifest the pain.
He can’t help but to sniff the rose once more.
He was certain that this was the rose,
As soon as he saw it within a bush of thorns,
Ruddy as a maiden’s lips, emerald flows of vitality
Through its spine. Leaving his garden behind,
He was certain that this was the rose.
The garden lost its colors before the rose.
Never as red could these flowers of the garden be,
Growing only to entertain his eyes, to give their life to him,
Who was ready to give his own life to the rose.
The garden lost its colors before the rose.
The wounds from thorns were pleasures,
As he reached for the rose with his hands.
The thorns tore his clothes and prickled his flesh,
But never expelled that rosy spell which made
The wounds from thorns feel like pleasures.
He was bound to the rose as soon as he sniffed it.
The gentle blushes suddenly swirled like flames,
Revealing that lurid laughing face. Upon the stalk,
Curving like a snake, were hungry teeth that rattled:
“You are bound to me forever, my lover, my slave!”
Yan Jin is an undergraduate second year English major at Oberlin College. He has not submitted works to any press previously. He lives in Beijing, China and attends college at Oberlin, OH.