Early Sunday morning, hushed
by the air-conditioned chill of her grandfather’s flower shop,
she, no longer a child, but still so young
she has never been kissed,
watches rare blue roses fan open their fingers
like ultraviolet ghosts.

Surrounded by their more conventional cousins
(Christ’s Blood red, Virgin white)
they are surreal, and
it would be easy to believe
what her grandmother told her:
It’s unnatural.
Dishonest knives and tainted tinted water
made them like this.   

The shop is still.  A sterile draft from the fans wafts through her,
muting her thoughts, brushing over them with pale fingers
until they are almost as smooth and safe
as the beads of a rosary.
Yet there are still half-heard sounds:
children outside playing in the warming spring morning,
her grandmother calling
Hurry or we’ll be late for Mass!
and a suffocated voice musing in the depths of her head:
When I am older,
I will buy my girlfriend blue roses.