Roses in Washington Square Park

Juliana Roth

I sit with my mother across piles of roses, stems clipped

and lined straight in three rows, intersecting. Some chalked

anarchy symbols, others uterus reclaiming. We don’t know

where the roses come from, but nobody will pick them up,

then a few do. Put them back, a trance over the buds.

A communal understanding not to touch. I look for the artist

as my mother translates what the German men next to us say

over sips of gin. Something about going to Astoria

for a club. One guy likes a blond girl he danced with. I’m going

to stop now, my mother whispers. She googles: roses in

Washington Square park. They’re like thirty five a dozen,

she repeats. The cost is always considered. I wonder

about the magic of a community of strangers

not touching what isn’t theirs.

Author: Juliana Roth

Juliana was selected as a VIDA Fellow with the Sundress Academy for the Arts for her fiction. Her writing appears in The Breakwater Review, Your Magic, Irish Pages, Los Angeles Review of Books as well as being produced as independent films that she directs. Her web series, The University, was nominated by the International Academy of Web Television for Best Drama Writing and screened at survivor justice nonprofits across the country. She writes the weekly newsletter Drawing Animals which features essays, interviews, and doodles celebrating our interconnection with animal life, and teaches writing at NYU.

View all posts by Juliana Roth