Buying stamps I’m handed a book full of flags.
Nothing strange, nothing you wouldn’t expect
in an American store, in an American town,
but I ask – What other choices do you have?
Celebrate! one book says, over and over in primary colors.
Another, a page of pastel flowers. I’ll take the flowers,
I say. Oh really! I’m surprised.
Somedays, moments present themselves like willing
and fragrant petals aching to give, and yet you approach
like a cautious cat, your few inches of whiskers
carefully testing the air for the bee before taking a breath.
What would you have expected me to choose? The flags,
she says. I wink.
You really don’t know me at all.
(from The Lawnmower Poems, Foothills Publishing, 2019)