The Scatter of Flowers
- Feb 17, 2023
- 2 min read
by Mikki Aronoff
~ after Ceija Stojka
Hands up in the air! Wondering if it could be a game, we threw our heads back and laughed and lifted our arms. We twirled our skirts and whooshed our shawls, embroidered with leaves and berries and herbs. We tambourined and danced our brilliant colors. The yellows! Such yellows!
Our parents stood stiff as sunflowers stalks. Their shivs were no match for the rifles. They should have listened to the daylilies. Even they know you can’t count on the sun for long.
*
Hopscotch to Heaven etched in ice. Snowmelt and mud. A giant eye watching from the sky, icicles dripping from its lashes. Barbs. We stretched our necks looking for yellows.
*
The train barreling down the tracks. The rails closing like a zipper, stuck there with us jammed inside the cattle car. The sky borrowed our corals and reds, so we thought we were home. But where were our horses?
*
We knew nothing of games. Of crosses. Or naughts.
*
The snow has thawed, and leaves are beginning to sprout. I invite you for dinner for the first time. You’re clutching sunflowers in one hand. In the other, my favorite cake. How did you know? Had you heard my heels strike the ground at guitar’s first thrum? Did you note the birds carved on my caravan, see the return of the fox to my garden? How did you know of my love for almonds?
Mikki Aronoff’s work appears in New World Writing, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Tiny Molecules, The Disappointed Housewife, Bending Genres, Milk Candy Review, Gone Lawn, Mslexia, The Dribble Drabble Review, The Citron Review, and elsewhere. She’s received Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, Best American Short Stories, and Best Microfiction nominations.
