Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “A Bucketful of Roses” by Steph Percival, part of the League’s Fresh Voices program.

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A Bucketful of Roses

By Steph Percival

Outside the flower shop, a sign reads clearout: 50¢ a stem.

I am powerless to resist; the blooms are big and bold

and sexy as the sun. I select 10, go in to pay for them.

As I depart, I spy Valley Girl stretched out by the door,

nose pointed to the wind. I reach down and give her a pet;

I am powerless to resist. On the way home, I think about

how we like our flowers. At a perfect peak or not at all.

We like to pick a thing to death yet demand it live. We like

to pick ourselves to death and forget to live. At home,

I snip stems, pluck brown petals, playing florist. Blemished

though they are, they are beauties. Blemished as we are,

perhaps we might remember this, that bliss can be found

in a $5 bouquet of roses, that even in death abundance

exists beyond our last breath.

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Copyright © Steph Percival

Steph Percival is an Atlantic Canadian poet, mama, and sheepadoodle walker. Her work has been published by Central Avenue, Gather, Quillkeeper’s Press, Cozy Ink Press, and Prosetrics and she has work forthcoming in several anthologies. You can find her poetry on Instagram at @thismanywords.

Fresh Voices is a publication and workshop program created by and for the League’s associate members, curated and edited by Erin Vance.

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