2005-04-21 - 11:11 p.m. Last few weeks the parking lot has been filled with flowers. Color, they refer to it as. That's how I know where to direct people. "Big purple blossoms." "Annual, right?" "Yeah." "Out in the parking lot." They're not all annuals. Some are perennials, but, because of the winters here, forced into annuals. Patio tropics, those are called. You can't keep them watered, these parking lot flowers. The sun dries them up, if you use a hose. If you turn the sprinklers on, no one can buy them. None of them smell. The fragrant flowers, the tea olives and the jasmines, the honeysuckle that reminds me of home, they are all inside, near the canopy, out in the first and second beds. Those are the plants I like working by. The Sweet Broom and Potato Bush. Scents follow me, mark places in my mind. Tuesday was the 12th anniversary of my sister's death. The thing that stops me in my track, first and fastest, is that smell that sometimes comes, unexpectedly, in department stores, on the street. That funeral home smell of well-intentioned flowers and face powder. Honeysuckle will be Tennesseee. Will be home and late nights on the hammock. Jasmine will be here. previous - next