Unsold Flowers at the End of the Market

Six in the evening,
the ice bucket is all water now.
Two bunches of yellow chrysanthemums,
one of short-stemmed roses
nobody has asked the price of.

All day I wrap flowers
for other people to carry off.
For a girlfriend, for a mother-in-law,
for an apology.
I tie the ribbon
and ask nothing more.

Nobody has wrapped flowers
to bring home to me.
It is not a big thing.
I only know
every bunch has somewhere to go,
except the ones left at dusk.

So I carry them home.
Cut the stems on a slant with the old scissors,
push them into a bottle with its neck sliced off,
set it beside the rice pot
on the folding table, one side against the wall.

I tell the chrysanthemums
I sold sixty bunches today.
They say nothing.
I do not know either
whether this is loneliness
or just habit.

Tomorrow morning, new water.

I have sold flowers for nineteen years, third stall from the end of the market. The last hour of the day is the one I know best: leaves all over the floor, my hands still smelling faintly of chrysanthemum. I run through which bunches still have a chance.

One time a young man stood in front of the stall for almost ten minutes.

"Auntie, could you wrap whichever bunch looks least like an apology?"

"What did you do that you're afraid it will look that way?"

"Nothing in particular. I apologise for everything, Auntie."

I wrapped the white chrysanthemums and left off the ribbon. He took them and never came back, so to this day I do not know how it went.

Another time I got it wrong. A woman bought flowers to take to a funeral, my hands were on autopilot, and I tied a pink ribbon around them. She was already out of the stall when it hit me, and I ran after her through the market to cut it off. Since that day I ask first: where are these going? Every bunch I wrap has someone to answer that. Only in the evening, sitting in front of the plastic bottle, do I notice nobody has asked me.

The woman who sells greens next door sometimes drops by while I am packing up and picks up the short-stemmed roses to smell them. "You take this one, dear. My house is too full, a flower never gets to wilt before somebody knocks it over." I laugh it off. I still do not know whether to envy that crowded house or feel sorry for it.

I do not know whether the emptiness of the evening is loneliness or only habit. At the dinner table the two look alike, and I have not worked out a way to tell them apart.

If the last hour of your day is also too tidy, someone has written about one pair of sandals by the door, and about a letter to someone sitting alone in a rented room. What I do is much smaller:

When to seek professional support

This article is a poem and a few small stories about evenings spent alone. It cannot replace treatment, and I am not promising that a sprig in a glass of water will make the emptiness go away.

But here are a few signs you should bring to a professional, rather than carrying them alone:

• The emptiness has lasted for weeks, and nearly every day feels heavier than the one before
• You have stopped answering most messages and stopped leaving the house except when you have to
• You no longer want to see even the people who used to be close
• You think about hurting yourself, even if it is just a passing thought

The last point cannot wait. Speak with someone you trust, today. The Emergency Support page explains what holds true in moments like that.

Going to see someone trained for this is like carrying the unsold bunch out and asking for a price: nobody thinks it strange.

This article was created with AI assistance.