My wife makes artificial flowers,
“money roses”, she calls them:
chocolate kisses wrapped in foil
become buds with petals of dollar bills
and green wire stems.
These are for my son’s friend’s birthday.
She needs baby’s breath and fern
to dress this bouquet, so she sends me
on a mission to the flower shop.
Dutifully I get this flower dressing,
bypassing roses and mixed bunches
in the refrigerated case.
Strike one.

I bring home the purchase, and she
arranges, as only her aesthetic eye can,
into a festive spray, wrapped in cellophane.
But some of the floral garnish is left over.
“It’s a shame,” she says,
“there are no real flowers to put with these.”
I chauffeur my son to the party, a Sweet Sixteen,
and return home, stopping to buy
a new CD on the way.
Strike two.

She is sullen.
It takes me a while to figure out why.
“I thought you would get some flowers
for the baby’s breath,” she says.
To get me to take a hint
requires a smack on the back of the head.
But she is too kind to do it.
So I venture out again and find
a bunch of pink carnations.
She is happy, gives me a big kiss.
“You don’t have to tell me thrice,” I say.

She arranges them in the vase
with the baby’s breath, and I realize
how these frail little flowers,
wisped on the end of woody stems,
look prettier with their colorful cousins.
Yet the carnations, too, are amplified
by this lacy accompaniment,
like a whisper in a lover’s ear,
one that says, “We are so much better
together than apart.”

10/08/2001

Posted on 10/08/2001
Copyright © 2024 Bruce W Niedt