Thank you for the flowers

 Thank you for the Flowers on the front cover of your book, the one I randomly picked off the shelf, feeling somewhat in need of flowers from someone who could maybe be my friend. 

Where are you, friend, on this rather gloomy day that watches our country burn to ashes, where children drown in Texas floods. 

And why can't I laugh off the ridiculousness of it - well because I live here, after all.  

It's a day to write a poem on my phone sitting in the bookstore, something I never do, except that

There is a woman at home scrubbing baseboards that have not been cleaned in decades and my husband is riding his bike along mountain streams

So I am here seeking solace, an escape from some parts of reality that pull me down, that even pushing big weights at the gym does not budge.

So thanks for the flowers, the poems inside that may, or may not, speak to me, but at least, you exist.