Today I wandered
Into a flower shop
David Austin roses
Puffy like mushroom caps
Three dollars a stem
Statuesque stock
Arching their backs
Botanical swans
I could not spare
The eighteen dollars
For the sweet posie
Its dimples shining through the mason jar
Fireflies in a vase
So I settled on a single bloom:
A carnation, two-fifty a stem
It is the colour your earlobes turn
When you squeeze them
The colour of a screaming newborn
Your mother’s lipstick
Your bridesmaids’ dresses
It is the colour of impossible wishes
The hope that flits around our heads
Too quick for the crush of our fists
Now it stands upright
Preening its tulle petticoat
The cheap ceramic of the vase
Holding its bones like a plaster cast
Each layer of petals a gyrus
A reminder
Of transience
Of frustration
Of beauty.
