Flower Seller

The barren concrete is
bedecked with fast waning flowers.
In the beeless shady stall
she paces the concrete sidewalk
with a bunch of flowers
in her gaunt hands.

Only faint whiffs of aroma
escape from the coloured flowers
and mingle with the spreading
fumes of the afternoon traffic.

Her coarse and mournful voice is
lost amid the roaring traffic
as she cries aloud,
hard-eyed,
with a sad and sun-splashed face
that depletes her poor business:
'Flowers here, seventy-five cents a bunch!'

When the traffic subsides,
her rage unfurls like a flower:
she loses her sweetness
faster than the flowers in her hand.

James Twala