Coincidental Orchids

COINCIDENTAL ORCHIDS

Concealing her newly flowered, hard-won bruises
she waited, for the moment to act was not yet right.
The faded beauty whose use propriety abuses,
hid her warrior behind mirrored shades looking for a fight.

Lugging bundles of thorn-less roses to the bus,
she preserved what seller's value that yet remains.
Mumbling tales of Synchronicity's hold on us -
the pavement was more than just a nation's oiled chains.

Mother going blind taught her how to pluck sunshine,
father leaving home taught her to shield her heart away,
one moment you are shooting the shit inside the goal line
the next you are scrambling to gather disarray.

A smile for the man who swiped her card, arrow up,
a frown for the one who smelled of screw-cap booze.
She knows we all get offered a drink from Wisdom's Cup
and some of us are so foolish as to actually refuse.

The bus smelled of prom night, of orchids and teen love;
she faltered for a half felt moment at memory's door.
When she shook herself free and her eyes looked above
she found she'd arrived at her her own home once more.

As her ride pulled away, and she turned away from Might Be's
she steeled her mind to choices she'd have made if she'd known.
She would have had someone say “Bless you,” when she sneezed,
she would not like to see herself in her twilight years - alone.

And so to her hollow home, and her lonely cold bed,
she comforted herself while tired of repetition.
There was no escape from demons racing through her head
and she resigned herself to a spinster's submission.

The orchid on the stoop caught her eye, then her heart.
The man from the laundromat last week, or some other,
a memento left to spark a conversation's shy start
left alone, so that no propriety should smother.

She smiled with real warmth, clutched her treasure inside,
slept the sleep of a woman who knows she is desired,
unaware of the orchids that took a stray wind's ride,
coincidence landing them where they were required.

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Shared with DVerse Poets for Open Link Night.

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This poem appeared in "One Night Stanzas"

 available from Big Table Publishing.

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©2014 Christopher Reilley

 
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