My Husband Never Buys Me Flowers

I see them every Saturday, those men
cradling bouquets of fresh-cut flowers
in the grocery check-out line — dyed daisies,
carnations, or a single rose in rouge.

I’m emptying my shopping cart behind
one as he pays. He shifts inside his suit
taps a polished shoe, unsheathes his wallet,
disappears like mist into the night.

It’s enough to make a gal feel jipped
out of romance. Isn’t this what love
ought to look like: Men on tall white horses,
charming men with flowers in pressed suits,

men who slay the dragons, save the day?
I carry my own groceries to the car.
At home, my husband slumbers on the couch,
resting from another day of working

in the garden, trimming back the chaos
of the oak whose shade was suffocating
my marigolds. His open palms are blooming
with blisters like the petals of a rose.

by Katie Hoerth

Editor’s Note: The imagery in the last two lines of this poem pushes the reader out of the narrator’s mind and into a bouquet of emotion.