Bus Station flowers
still cold from refrigeration
hands wrapped around
tightly. Red knuckled.
Eye out for a bottle of wine.
Bus will arrive any minute, he thinks.
Does she like white roses?
Are they even real?
Do roses come in white?
Lover Boy believes he was short-changed.
But what is a few dollars,
in the name of love? Besides,
he was in a rush. He forgot.
Meant to buy mums;
but he didn't know
what they look like. That
he thought that she never mentioned.
Sometimes, you just get stuck no matter what.
Remembered she mentioned
mums were her favorite flowers.
Once in passing. Pillow talk.
Early on. When the sex was still good,
and he didn't mind the way
she hogged the sheets
and farted in her sleep.
One eye on the clock.
The other on his surroundings.
Gets hit up by a bum,
shoos him off with the flowers.
Another approaches. He gives a dollar
to avoid the conversation. The flowers
look like they were starting to wilt
seeming more yellow
under a different light.
Do roses come in yellow?
Eyes a crusty old man
holding a plastic shopping bag
full of smelly clothes
and a key to a padlock.
The man holds these things
as if they are his most precious possessions.
Lover Boy despises and envies him;
but the stench made it impossible
to ponder further, as Lover Boy posited
that the smell is bad for the flowers.