100-Word Fiction: ‘A Dowry’

Their little hands reaching out into the sunlight and clear
Clutching scrunches of silver and white, like crumpled tenners, scores –
Unfolding the mottos of fortune cookies, notes of remembrance, promises
Made one to another, they to us, winter to summer.
The first gesture of the year is an embrace changing
Studded green to garlands of cream; an offering, deal, dowry
Of the newly prosperous, a show of intent, soft pride
That slow months will leave unrequited as the yellowings come.
Petals strewn on the breeze, again. The earth cracking beneath.
Hollow human laughs and the blossom long gone, branches bare.