#74

There is a strength in the flower district in the morning. She felt it through her nose as the sour summer garbage and chalked bus exhaust abruptly ended and an earthy sugar triumphed. She stood next to an old woman who was piling the discards of cut green filler material into a cart with something akin to mad hunger. At first, most of the fronds and stems slipped through the cart’s thin metal bars and ended up on the sidewalk, but eventually enough piled up to form an impenetrable base.

As she stood inhaling and exhaling and in no particular hurry, she thought about offering to help the old woman. There were so many stray pieces littering the ground, and a task would help quiet her busy mind. Then, as if sensing her consideration, the woman looked up at her and said in an almost birdsong, “You can’t.”