At a city flower cart, a customer buys a pink rose. The seller wraps it with real care—yellow paper, red ribbon—but her eyes seem shut down, worn by disappointments. The speaker almost sees someone beloved in her face and briefly imagines turning back to buy one of the woman’s own roses as a gift. Then the thought collapses: she must throw roses away daily, so wouldn’t she be tired of them? The moment stalls. The woman tracks the buyer warily, as if expecting a complaint; the buyer, holding the rose, has no answer. The seller trades in symbols of happiness for other people, but the speaker can’t tell what would make her happy, or whether any gesture could reach her. The mood is quiet, wistful, and a little lonely: two people stand close together over a beautiful flower, yet the joy it carries remains strangely one-sided.
Cityscape with Pink Rose — Summary
I stop at the flower lady's cart to see if she has roses. There are a few, with straggling leaves. The blooms are decent still, especially those in pink.
She interrupts her desultory lunch, brushing crumbs from her sleeve, to slip a long-stemmed pink from among the buds, carries it to her work table, and deftly wraps the stalk in a yellow paper, tying it, gentle-fingered, with a thin red ribbon.
I watch her eyes as I buy; they are like those in the face I love, but the spirit is closed: she has dwelt upon disappointments.
As I turn away, I see in my mind's eye, myself turning back to buy for her one of her own roses. Ha! no doubt she must throw away many; of all things, wouldn't she be sick, by now, of flowers?
Trading, as she does, in these signs of the happiness to others, what would be happiness for her, here, today? I catch her tracking me warily; now, as if to say: is there some problem with the rose? No. Or, rather, yes. Or no. I stand, unworded by the mystery of unsharable joy.