It ached to cross the Crimea
in all its fabled fabledness. 
Alas, only a few yurt-workers
looked up, and then down again
at the lamentable work at their feet

We wore it in the night, a light chop
of a lake ripple only a little plumper
than the rest. Then all was silence
and bad feeling again. The prefect stood up
from his mohair chair, a sign 
we were to hit the rose-paths again.

I found a pretext
to fall behind the others, and plucked a rose,
milk-pink--a Maréchale Niel no doubt.
All alarms went off, the gates shot up
Automatically, trapping me and my friends.
We began to run, helter skelter, through angel-wings
of the mounted sprinklers, that coat the lawn with vast
arcs of tribulation, sans regret

It couldn't have been more than a few hours
when we had regrouped at a café on the village square.
The dress, we were to understand, had saved us, nay
terrorized our inquisitors, who chased us from the precincts.
It was dark with water spots now, a lovely thing. 
"If you could just send..." she said.
But I cut her off. "Did he ask for it?"