Strawflower

The street's alive with pulsing sunlight.
The people sneeze from pollen color in car windows.
The restaurant owner set the tables up outside
as people step on sidewalk cracks where
strawflowers grow.

Against a wall nearby sits a young man,
rays of sun caught in his hair:
he likes to keep it long.
Guitar in his lap, he sits and sings
for the sun, for the spring and anything
that comes along.

Enter girl in lilac dress,
a pair of dark sunglasses covering her face.
His song evokes a smile and
she stops to pick a strawflower
and puts it in his case.

The scene changes:
He stops playing so suddenly
and she can't think of what to do.
He says, "What makes you think
I'm worth killing for?
And why don't you go ahead
and kill me too.
Yeah, go ahead and kill me too.

"Some of us have worked so hard to grow
only to be stepped on too soon
as we're shooting for the moon.
There's already so much in our way.
Who are you to up and say,
'I feel like crushing a dream today'?"

She tries to smile but he's not joking.
The half of his face that she can see is set in stone.
She says, "I'm sorry, understand,
it's just you play so pretty and were
sitting there all alone.
I'm sorry if I have offended.
I only meant to repay some of the joy
you sent my way.
Your song was beautiful and sad
but you know things die every day.

"And we've waited so long just
to see a flower.
It's been so cold here
with nothing but the memory of a song
of a strawflower.
A memory come true:
that's what I give to you."

He's still impassive but intrigued.
He says, "I'd wish you'd take those sunglasses off
and maybe clearer vision would prove you wrong."
She says, "Funny, I was just thinking your hair's too long."
He says, "Look, I'd like to appreciate the thought
but there's just too much you presume to know."
She says, "Yet you think of yourself as judge of what
you can make people feel and what they can let show."

Just enough
or just one flower to show.

"What's a life to you anyway?
Just something you can use.
Something you can just refuse.
And what are dreams to you anyway?
Did you wake up and say
'I feel like crushing a dream today'?"

"Today's been waiting for you.
The universe is listening now,
and as long as we're all dying
let it be.
To give you this:
a sign of gratitude.
That's what I give to you."

The last he sees of Lilac Dress
is her green eyes when she tells him,
"You know, no one blossoms only once.
Good luck,"
and disappears down the street
where people step on sidewalk cracks
where strawflowers grow.

-Anna Spackman (from Skin and Bones)