When we asked the florist for a scottish thistle
for the groomsmen’s boutonnières
in a booth at the rundown chinese takeaway
that had painted fruit on the walls, cracked
from the old greek restaurant that was bought out
twice since then but never painted over,
she said, we only have the pink ones, and I thought,
the ones that grow on the roadside from here to montréal,
spiny-leafed and loyal only to the foothills?
but we can paint them purple-blue, she said,
and make them just like new, nova scotia,
to match the ancient taylor tartan,
the soft hues of periwinkle brought over from
arbroath, for, as long as but a hundred of us remain
alive, as the saying goes, something something freedom.
We forgot to cut the kilt strings, my love,
and when I look at our portraits I’ll always remember
your father running out of the hotel with scissors
and kneeling at your feet in the frost
as my sister and I blew on our blue fingers,
trying to stave off frostbite by holding them
in our armpits between the snapshots,
and then your brother adjusted your boutonnière,
so of course the purple came off on his fingers,
and the pin holding your ‘scottish’ thistle —
pink underneath the flaking paint —
was bent at a right angle, pointing eastward
or maybe just jabbing into your heart as we laughed
and hurried inside to warm ourselves at the fire,
feeling wild and as free as two canadian geese.