Poetry Sample: Curved Silhouette

I wrote this poem for creative writing class. I had to follow many specifics: for instance, include a song fragment, a painting, and a random quotation.

“Curved Silhouette”
After “Figured Dark” by Greg Rappleye

I'm walking in the patio,
meandering through roses and pansies,
my feet scuffing the pebbles
sounding like static a girl wishing
in a July night.
My dreams are the elusive dreams.
My song is "Rosie,"
as Jason Alexander holds his sweetheart’s hand
and exclaims, in that exultant voice,
"There’s one rose sweeter than any that grows."
I think of Waterhouse's The Soul of a Rose--
the browns in it, the pale pinks
and sea-foam green,
the roses crawling the wall
and the woman inhaling their fantasies.
The curling roses must transport her
to places swirling with unlikely dreams.
I stand before the trellis,
bees pushing into my yellow roses.
I admit to none: where the walls and the streets disappear,
when the roses root me to the spot--
Smooth petals, thorns grasping the wood.
I recall that Robert Browning greatly loved Elizabeth.
And Robert's pain—I wonder-- did it still throb twenty-eight years
after her early death?
Red, red roses shouldn't wither.
I am solitary on the patio,
feeling, without anyone else, the roses.
I am entranced by them.
I could stand watching the petals and count each one fall.