At least once a day he sees girls with flowers,
violets or roses or white hyacinths,
he shouts to them, waves to them, whistles and catcalls,
and sees them exposed on the top of Greek plinths,
or bare in a garden awash in the sunlight,
or wrapped up in paper and passed as a gift,
then he smiles at the petals of one in a window
and mouths a farewell at the end of his shift.