Having crawled out of the rose, she went home

to where the ocean had left long before, time
called an age. The limestone had been named
for a man, same as the penitentiary and the railstop,
although no one called the rock anything 
but bluffs, and that a term from the sea itself, 
bow of a ship, something steep. The rose 
had been sweet as apples in the heat, petals 
smothering but a safe place to sleep. The scent 
clung so that her hair still seemed alive
even though she knew the snakes had died. 
In the abandoned quarry, her breath fell 
on the columns like sun, was absorbed 
like sound and warmth by the calcium salt 
of bodies the sea had precipitated into stone.