Tasteful Arrangements Poem by Sonny Rainshine

Mrs. Parsons would buy the flowers
for the dinner party.
She'd not permit pretense to intervene-
There'd be no dissembling, nothing arty.

To impose
a tasteful subtlety-
to command restraint:
that's the key

to buying flowers.
Dahlias, therefore, she despised.
Peonies she found intrusive-
either might antagonize

her guests. These white mums
will look quite nice.
A simple spray of
baby's breath will suffice.

As she digs deeply into her handbag
To pay for the bouquet,
A photograph falls
to the shop floor and lay

at her feet. A long forgotten thrill
resurfaces now
and arrests her breath as
she wipes her brow.

'I'll take a dozen crimson dahlias
and ten gladiolus stems.
How much are those sunflowers?
These orchids are gems.'

The florist obliges, but
Shaken to her core,
Mrs. Parsons has fallen with the baby's breath
in a heap in the floor.