The Small Flower Shop

The small flower shop,
It’s all Abuzz.
From the first cracked open door,
Business.
Red rose upon red rose,
Tied together with a decorative string.
Inspected and wrapped,
And set on the table.
Customer after customer,
Usually a young man,
Enters to pick up his bundle.

A young woman passes by the shop
She sees the table
She sees the roses
But no one sees her
Even those who passed by
Carrying their bundles,
Smiling in anticipation.
But is there no smile on her face?
There’s no expression there,
But within the eyes a depth,
An expression of melancholy.
Pausing to watch for a moment,
She then walks on.

Commentary:

This is based off of a specific memory of mine. There was a time when I would go on walks in the afternoon, and many times I would pass this little flower shop. I'd go in there once-in-a-while to look at some of the miscellaneous items they sold in there, such as cross stitching patterns and scrapbooking items (not that I was ever really good at those, but I liked the collection, and some of the scrapbooking papers came in handy for printing out my poetry at Christmas). Their busiest time of the year was during Valentines Day.

This particular memory occurred on Valentines Day. I was walking past the store, and they'd had so many orders of red roses that they had them out on a table outside their door. There were several coming in to pick up their flowers to take home, and as I watched, I couldn't help but feel a little bit of a pang inside of me. Here were all of these beautiful flowers destined as an expression of love to someone who holds a special place in this person's heart, and I wasn't one of them. Not to worry, though, despite the momentary reminders of that missing segment of my life, I've learned to redistribute the focus to those loved ones in my life rather than those who are not. But there are others who may still struggle with it, and this is just small a way to express that.