BUYING YOURSELF FLOWERS

by Amy Grimm

I swear the woman who works at the

grocery store on Prince Street was an

obstetrician when she lived in Korea.

The way she glows at the roses while

she swaddles them in tissue paper

and passes them to you across the counter

so tenderly you are clearly being handed

either a newborn or a grenade.  I don’t

want to be a mother, but my left arm knows

just how to be a cradle, and on the way home,

a homeless man says they have my eyes.

Amy Grimm lives in Rutherfordton, NC. Her work has appeared in The Greensboro Review, RHINO, and Forklift, Ohio.