The working man, orange hi vis vest caked with grime, enters the train car. He looks hardened, black underneath his fingernails and a 5 o’clock shadow at 4:15, but he is dragged into the train car behind a truly enormous bouquet of flowers. If flowers wore clothes, I think, those would be bursting at the seams. Washes of pinks, the fuchsia of new love, the blush of shyness at speaking the words. I wish I was a painter, I think, I wish I could paint this man and his flowers as I see them: so tired, but compelled by a sweet aroma or love or pretty colors, smiling in spite of himself and laying down money tools and hands hard scratched out of pavement for something beautiful we all know will die, allowed to be wrapped in shabby paper for something bigger than itself. I want to ask him who the lucky person is, but each hypothetical answer gives me so much delight I decide to live inside the question. A mother’s sacrifice honored, a grandfather laid at eternal peace remembered, a daughter creating so much pride it pops the heartstring like bubble gum, a new baby babbling new words into the family lexicon like ‘pissketti’, a hospital stay erupted with a symphony of pink hope, singing, “not today, not today, not today”. A woman so beautiful he sees her everywhere, their dinner table perfumed with the delicate scent, whispering “just because, just because, just because”