I pick them myself.
Wildflowers, all in purples and blues,
tied together with a sheer white ribbon.
I find them in the back of a garden,
hidden behind an abandoned house.
I gather the stems in my hand,
kiss each petal of each flower,
of sixteen individual flowers, hundreds of petals,
daisies and dahlias, and finally one single sunflower.
A spotlight in a mass of melancholy.
She won’t know who I am,
anonymous on the late June day,
fifteen years before I am to be born.
But here I am, waiting for this moment,
to hand them to her, our knuckles touching
briefly, but only briefly.
She’ll smile at me, a crease in her forehead
as she tries to recall my face, my name.
I am familiar, she knows, but how?
I’ll say nothing, just hand them to her,
include with them a note.
She’ll whisper a Thanks, and I’ll be off.
I’m sorry, the note will say.
For what? she’ll want to know,
what is this stranger sorry for?
But I am gone.
She’ll get it later, thirty six years later,
how I will let her down
and how she will lift me back up again.
And she’ll remember the girl
with the purple bouquet, barely,
but she’ll remember.
lewlewbelle 