Cocktail Hour to a Florist, a poem
Illustration by Alexandra McDermott Brown
cocktail hour to a florist
a telephone line wrings itself dry,
dripping love songs and farewells and see
you tomorrows onto hot asphalt.
words wrung as data and colour
next to the power plant
by the river, purple and orange meet.
while they make love
at a crossroad
they are inter
rupted, diluted, and flushed apart
downstream, a mother plucks
poppies and peonies
from fertile beds.
under the plastic roof, they coalesce -
on an oak table
in a cold kitchen,
where milk jars sprout
dead flowers
Meg Edwards is a fourth year student at the University of Edinburgh studying English Literature and History.