The Man Who Sells Flowers at the Signal

The verse

He stands where the road holds its breath

between the go and the stop,

roses wrapped in yesterday's newspaper,

the world is rushing past nonstop.

I have bought flowers from him.

I do not know his name.

I know the red of his roses, though,

and that he is always the same.

Same corner. Same basket. Same patience.

While the city forgets to slow down.

He offers beauty to strangers,

and most of them don't even know.

The vignette

Every morning, without fail, he was there. The signal at the corner of the market road, the one that stayed red for too long and he, with his basket of roses and marigolds, was weaving between the stopped cars.

She had bought from him once, on a Tuesday with no occasion. He had wrapped the roses quickly and neatly, then handed them over with a nod. No small talk. She had driven away with flowers on the passenger seat and the strange feeling of having been given something she didn't deserve.

She didn't know his story. She told herself she should ask someday. But someday kept becoming tomorrow. And he kept standing at the signal, patient as the red light, offering beauty to a city that was always in too much of a hurry to stop.