Flowerson by Irène Mathieu

"One afternoon in the year of fascism..."

Flowerson
by Irène Mathieu

one afternoon in the year of fascism
the grocery store for some reason
is full of young Black men buying flowers.
slim bouquets held in their delicate hands,
their necks – the men’s and the flowers’ –
angled toward the light, their eyes
glowing with love, I think I see
my son among them, though he’s still
in diapers, too young yet to walk or say
my name. I imagine each of these men,
steady in their purpose, on their way
to present the farm-grown roses or carnations
to a mother, lover, father, ailing neighbor,
or Nana, and I think of how when I
dressed my baby boy in a hand-me-down onesie
covered with lacy petals the other night
his sister delighted and we called him
Flowerson as he beamed to be admired so.
I say a quick pantheist’s prayer
that one day he’ll be among them –
the noble, brave and brown-skinned men
who scan plastic-wrapped blessings in the
self-checkout line and move lithely beyond
the automatic doors, chins pointing toward
the horizon, floating above the noise of
other shoppers on their phones and car radios
announcing military news, not dissuaded, not
unhappy, not beholden – but in love in some
way or another, and walking in the light of it
righteously as a peony unfurling.

★ Read our interview with Irène on Interrogating Motherhood & The Human Experience ★