"Blood-blown like a Rose"

The Sick Rose

O Rose, thou art sick:

The invisible worm,

That flies in the night

In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy;

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy.

-William Blake

For Renee Nicole Good

Killed by I.C.E. on January 7, 2026

They say she is no more,

That there her absence roars,

Blood-blown like a rose.

Iced wheels flinched & froze.

Now, bare riot of candles,

Dark fury of flowers,

Pure howling of hymns.

If for us she arose,

Somewhere, in the pitched deep of our grief,

Crouches our power,

The howl where we begin,

Straining upon the edge of the crooked crater

Of the worst of what we’ve been.

Change is only possible,

& all the greater,

When the labour

& bitter anger of our neighbors

Is moved by the love 

& better angels of our nature.

What they call death & void,

We know is breath & voice; 

In the end, gorgeously, 

Endures our enormity. 

You could believe departed to be the dawn

When the blank night has so long stood.

But our bright-fled angels will never be fully gone,

When they forever are so fiercely Good.

by Amanda Gorman

CPW