This is the moment the roses
cascade over backstreet walls,
throng the public parks —
their cream or scrunched pinks
unfolding now to demonstrate
unacknowledged thought.
The world is ours too! they brave,
careless of tomorrow
and wholly without leadership
for who’d mount a soapbox
on the rose-behalf?
I haggle for my little
portion of happiness,
says each flower, equal, in the scented mass.