Oscar Wilde’s poetry, plays and stories meant a lot to me when I was young, as did his trial and imprisonment for a love ‘that dared not speak its name’ back then.

Lying on the lawn
laughing as I turn the page
I catch sight of the flower
its shouting bloody vermillion
and I freeze inside
remembering the man
who wore a green carnation.

He was poetry he
a man of words and love
blamed imprisoned rejected.

I push the book aside
and reach for the bright red flower
with tears for its beauty and scent
for the long-dead man of words,
and for evergreen remembrance.