A Victorian Flower Girl

I was captured by her luminous reflection, Her face dressed in a forlorn beauty as she looked beyond the stars and wept, each tear a memory of Love's affection memories that flooded the heart in pain. ii Eyes once as beautiful and clear as the early 'morn relinquishing futile tears in the palm of her hands, cradling memories for each tear shed, she mourns, a portrait of despair by the light where she stands. Both hands on her heart, that Death had not claimed. iii To watch Beauty's forlorn face slowly age and die no sleeve to wear her heart or wipe the tears away, brings its own tears that bleed my conscience dry. Arrest now my heart and ask not as to the reasons why why Beauty beats in a heart never seen, yet still dies? iv Breath quickened as the blue hour drew ever nearer beauty and ruin skipped barefoot in the morning dew under vagrant skies guided by the beguiling sun The heart paused a while to breathe in the morning hue eyes sparkling with delight for a world she barely knew v A shroud of familiar voices welcomed her in toxic silence Their intent to converse only with the tongues of rattling purses as she opens her clenched hands which contains her fragile life she offers a penny, then draws close to her chest a bouquet of flowers while caustic tongues of all colours and flavours waft above the curses. vi Bodies swayed like a thousand ships tossed about in a raging storm Flower baskets held aloft displaying a sea of a thousand rainbows a jamboree of fragrance subduing the odour of the unwashed souls while the poorest of the poor wouldn't offer the drippings from their nose as the untended bantlings sit clueless playing with a banquet of dirt. vii "How can they say God is Love when my own heart has been shown none?" It was time to leave this stage and all its performing acts and clowns. Cradling her thoughts and primroses as they both wilted before her eyes barefoot, in the blistering heat she walked, blood dripping from her soul, the pangs betwixt hunger and death visited hourly like an unwelcome guest. viii The heart slipped as the sun dipped below the mansard roofs wilting flowers she could not sell nor eat, tightly fastened to her clutches. No longer could her eyes deceive a heart that had so much left to give when a gentleman walking briskly by, stooped to ask how much ? "A shilling your honour, sir, but I fear the flowers you want may not live." ix "With a little love and care they will blossom of that you have my word, for every bud and flower deserves a second chance in life to bloom", he unclenched the flowers from cold hands replacing them with a shilling a silence of joy filled that moment as she bid the gentleman farewell, her upbeat heart skipped homeward under the gaze of the guiding moon. x As she stood wistful by the window I asked her do you believe in God? "God? I hope only exists for the poor and that mother is sleeping in Heaven I don't know where Heaven is sir, mother said it's here, in your heart for if it's true sir i would like nothing more than to be in her arms instead but at nigh on seven years old I don't know if I should like being dead". xi I address myself spitting my conscience at the mirror with a heavy burden I walk away carrying my heart in my mouth How a child so beautiful in nature is born to die, yet never born to live? my conscience will make amends, a promise that my heart will keep. I have heard and listened to your cries, this man's heart shall never sleep.