Five Yellow Roses

Five Yellow Roses

by Matthew SweeneyWhat stopped her bawling was the doorbell

ringing, and a man standing there with five

yellow roses, bulked up with green fronds

and tied in a dinky knot with olive twine.

There was no card to say who the flowers

came from. The man’s uniform was blue

with a brown insignia of a spider on his right

top pocket that she saw he kept unbuttoned.

As he waltzed down the path to the gate

the Siamese cat that frequented the garden

raised its back and hissed. The man laughed

and flounced out to his waiting white van.

Oh, the shit-faced side streets of life! OK,

she’d been born in Madras, in a flowery tea shop

while an albino conjurer magicked a hare

to leap from his heavily-ringed brown fingers.

Five yellow roses? Enough to encourage her

to cook saffron rice, with turmeric-tinged prawns

and sautéed yellow courgettes. She didn’t play

the Ry Cooder where yellow roses say goodbye.