Flower Show, Philadelphia
Accustomed to gray wilted leaves in our kitchen, Mom and I gawk at the bright petals. We read on a card that stephanotis floribunda forms the white walls of a homegrown mansion, with bright purple clematis for the shutters. Inside a sundrop cottage, we pass an ivy chair and bed and a star-of-bethlehem quilt, gold on white. Past the displays, vendors sell seeds, potted plants, bouquets, flowers by the stem, and we buy an armful of bluebells, some pussy willows, and three sticks that will, we are told, grow into South American palm trees. Outside, March is as drab as the grey train that will take us home. We almost can't fit through its doors with these bundles. Usually our mums and azaleas never survive the summer, but now our house blooms for over a week, and the sticks develop broad flat leaves. Mom goes to the nursery for more plants, hoping that this flower-show magic might touch them too, turn our garden into more than a clutter of weeds and brown stems. I just watch the flowers, amazed, afraid to touch the blossoms, afraid they might fall dry brown into my cupped hands.