Flower Child – Flash Fiction

Flower Child

Every Sunday without fail, mother and I would walk to the station and catch the morning train to the coast to see my grandmother.   

Mother would tend to grandmother’s garden, caring for roses, mowing grass and trimming bushes. I amused myself as best I could for an eight-year old but mostly I learned about flowers.  Names like Peony, Hollyhock, and Delphinium. The term “bedding plants” made the child I was, giggle.  But pretty blue Lobelia was prefect next to the white Alyssum.

Exhausted we’d return in the early evening with armfuls of her beautiful blooms.   

I did not always want to go.  I know now my mother was escaping from her unhappy life and needed the diversion.  She is no longer here and I think I’d like, too, to plant the sweet alyssum that smells like honey and peace reminding me always of her.

Copyright © 2022 Christine Bolton - Poetry for Healing
All Rights Reserved

Sanaa aka adashofsunny is hosting Prosery Monday at D'Verse.
She has prompted us with this line from a poem that is to be included
in our piece of flash fiction exactly as it is.  

"I’d like, too, to plant the sweet alyssum that smells like honey and peace.”  from the poem, “What I would like to grow in my Garden.” by Katherine Riegel.

The piece of flash fiction is to have no more than 144 words'