I myself, was a potter
And my brother, was a poet
So we went to see a man
About some flowers
On the outskirts of town

We had already been
To the one man with flowers
Most well-known in town
In the morning
And had gotten two flowers

One for me
And one for my brother
And they were fine
But not exactly
What we had in mind

So we asked our driver
On our way back
If there were another
Man with flowers
Somewhere in town

And he said, “Well …”
And then he paused
“There is one other”

And by the tone of his voice
Like any fairytale
We should have known
To turnaround and go home
And be happy with our two
That we had gotten that morning

My brother, the poet,
Had heard the tone
And wanted to turn around

I, the potter,
Urged that we go on
And my brother, being the younger
Was forced to follow

When we got there
There was a large henchman
Seated at a long wooden table
In a larger open room
With a high ceiling
And a clutter of objects all about

We asked him to see the man about some flowers, and he asked us some questions that I now cannot remember. And our answers must have sufficed, because he turned and took us up the stairs that led to a small room in the back of the place, also cluttered with objects.

There was a man seated there, the man of the flowers. The second man of the flowers in town, or maybe the first—this we hoped to find out.

I told him sir, “We would like to buy two flowers.”

And he said, “Four.”

I said, “Beg your pardon.”

He repeated,” Four … that’s the minimum.”

“But the other man of flowers in town …”

“I’m not the other. I’m the only,” he interrupted me, without looking up from whatever he was tinkering with on his workbench.

I started to argue, but the henchman who had remained standing in the doorway stepped in and grabbed me gruffly, asking, “Do you know who you’re talking to?”

And what happened next will be hard to explain, but the long and short of it is, my brother the poet was turned into a pot to teach me a lesson about being greedy.

I was let outside and wept in the grass for the loss of my brother and learned my lessons once and for all about sacrificing the potter for the poet.