“Flowers make me cry,” she lamented,
staring forlornly out the screen door at me. . .
“Why?” I ask, lowering the bouquet.
“Because I know they will die.”
I looked at the tree next to her door.
“And these leaves? “
“What about them?” she asked.
“They will die too.”
She looked at me defiantly,
“Is that a Hawaian shirt?
“Yes”
“How gauche”
We stood looking at each other.
“Fuck the leaves,” she said.
Silence & distant traffic gathered at her door.
More leaves floated down.
“That’s a little harsh,” I replied.
“The world,” she said, “has plenty
of leaves---leaves are common as people.
But not flowers.
Flowers draw a fragile breath in this
harsh world & are finally consumed
by the perversity of modern life.
It makes me sick.”
Her body shook with anger.
I looked at her and she looked away.
She stood a tight ball of nerves & tensions.
Since my chance at romance
looked a bit remote, I snapped
a fresh flower off the bouquet,
she jerked, and averted her eyes,
as I slid the bleeding stem into the
button hole of my well worn
Hawaiian shirt.
As I turned to leave, she sobbed,
flung the screen open & mashed her
quivering frame against me.
SO?
Never under estimate the
Hawaian shirt.
The Last Flower Child on Earth
Steve De France is a poet who from California. He has an eBook, Shots in the Night (2008) available on Why Vandalism? as well as a couple more top-notch amazing eBooks due out this Fall and Winter. There will be more news and information on these on the homepage and in a more more developed eBook section soon.